







Class P ^ w' 

a 

Book '^1 


Cotpghtl^” 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSrr. 






' t 6 . 









' /. i •- 

^ . 








>- • > 
» 


I ^ 

' v' 


• I 9 

: .•..n* 

i 


f>-« 









• * 

%t * 


. 4 


-'• *!. > '* I* ^ 

' , jh>. ■". , . '.. 


> 4 « . 


*; 




4 ' 


! ' ' '- V ■ 


•* -'' / W ♦ 


i ^ 


^ *♦ 





u''- 


/ 

. ^ I • 

' I ^ 


I r #^ - 




V 


*. / 


%,• 


t* • -v- 



LOVE’S WAY IN DIXIE 



0 


LOVE’S WAY IN 
DIXIE - 

SOME SHORT STORIES FROM 
CUPID’S FAVORITE FIELD 


BY 

KATHARINE HOPKINS CHAPMAN 


NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1905 





Library ot 

I" wu Jopje^^ •’iecw V >J *■ 

i 


i 


AUQ 1 iyu5 

jopjingiii !:.iiu.y 

-^2^. 

^U'uiitf A AAc* 

/t^€f 

COPf Bi. 

r t n*iTrrrru . 




COPYRIGHT, 1905 

BY THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 


TO MT MOTHER 


That fair fiower of the Old Southy whose spicy breath 
a bud cheered many greycoats in battle or hospital ; 
whose rich perfume y when full-blowny heartened 
the defeated during Reconstruction* s wreck- 
age ; whose mellow fragrance now incites 
dreams of a New South y these stories 
are lovingly dedicated 
















CONTENTS 


Page 

The Penitent Passenger, 9 

A Willing Victim, 17 

Misdirected, 33 

The Peanut Prince, 53 

A Pink Cravat, 71 

“The Top O’ The Morning,” 89 

Whose Picture? 115 


THE PENITENT PASSENGER 


The ever-thrilling notes of Mendelssohn's 
wedding march hushed the expectant guests 
instantly, bringing sweet memories to some and 
a vague, prophetic thrill to others. The im- 
posing rector, snow-clad and snow-crowned, 
took his place by the floral altar in the front 
drawing-room. The groom, pale and expectant, 
approached from the side with his best man. 

Then down the stately, winding stair came a 
bevy of bridesmaids, so fresh and dainty they 
seemed never to have borne a heavier burden 
than the sheaves of fluffy chrysanthemums they 
now carried. 

When these billows of floating organdy had 
subsided in their allotted circle there followed 
a rosy embodiment of all youth and beauty, 
whose clinging pink gown proclaimed her maid- 
of-honor. Never had Nan Carpenter appeared 
more beautiful, for her usual radiant careless- 
ness was replaced by a wistful gravity even 
more becoming. Was she grieved to part with 
her chum Lucille, or was it — 

All attention now centered on the bride as 
she wended her way down the stair on the arm 


10 The Penitent Passenger 

of her brother. At first she seemed only the 
conventional satin-sweeping, tulle-draped figure, 
but as the brilliant light pierced the cloud of 
tulle there was revealed a face of such match- 
less, marvelous perfection as many never see in 
a lifetime, as few indeed can claim for their 
own — so thought the groom. 

The music dropped to a mere accompaniment 
of the rector’s impressive voice as he read the 
words that have made or marred so many lives. 
When the bride’s hand was transferred from 
the arm of her brother to the groom. Will 
stepped back with eyes bent resolutely down. 
But when the maid-of-honor moved forward 
with the ring Will’s eyes followed her despite 
his efforts. 

As she turned back and he saw her face for 
the first time that night, she gave him such a 
kind, sympathetic glance that he drew in his 
breath sharply and wondered if this could be 
the same girl who had answered him so 
flippantly, then harshly, last night. His lips 
tightened as he recalled that scene and her 
pointed avoidance all day, and he vowed he 
would not speak to her again except for the 
necessary adieu ; for Nan was going that night 
when the bridal couple did, but in a different 
direction. 


The Penitent Passenger 


11 


The kneeling figure of the bride next caught 
his eye and sweet memories of their long, close 
companionship crowded out even Nan’s tanta- 
lizing face. Next after her mother’s quivering, 
tearful kiss did Lucille turn to Will, then he 
was pressed aside by the crowding, congratula- 
tory throng. 

The end of the ceremony seemed also the 
limit of Nan’s new-found dignity, and she fell 
upon Lucille with such hearty, dainty kisses 
that Will was drawing unconsciously nearer, 
when he paused, paralyzed — after a very slight 
protest, Nan had also kissed the groom ! 

Will turned so sharply that he had to apolo- 
gize for several damaged trains, and then set 
out on a round of almost savage hospitality. 
Not a lonely dame or forlorn damsel did he 
overlook, but always moved on abruptly if he 
came within range of a certain pink tormentor, 
who seemed here, there and everywhere, always 
the center of gaiety. 

Finally, at the library door he paused to enjoy 
a picture worthy of an artist. The bride was 
seated in a quaint chair by a table where lay a 
bridal book in which the guests were to write 
their names for a souvenir long years hence. 
The groom stood near, with a proprietary hand 
on her chair. “Here, WilV^ called Lucille, 


12 


The Penitent Passenger 


‘^come fill your name in the space I left, for 
when the bridal party wrote theirs, you were 
too much absorbed in old Mrs. Hyde to notice 
such frivolities.” 

As she fluttered over the leaves she explained 
to a guest that the book was a gift from Nan 
Carpenter, who had painted a dainty water- 
color on each page and bound it with a piece of 
the bridal gown. As Will wrote, Lucille said 
in an undertone : 

^'You have done the host so thoroughly that 
you could be excused for taking a quiet chat 
with Nan; especially as we leave so soon, 
brother mine,” she added, with a little catch in 
her voice, for this dear one had been to her both 
brother and father. This slight encourage- 
ment sufficed to overthrow his wavering resolu- 
tion to avoid Nan and he happily hurried away. 
A vain search finally brought him to the little 
family sitting-room which had not been much 
used that night. Here all was quiet and home- 
like, but empty ; fifteen minutes earlier he would 
have found Nan nestled in his mother’s chair, 
in just the right mood. For Will’s apparently 
calm acceptance of her refusal the night before 
had rather startled Miss Nan — and not to 
notice her this last night, after these weeks of 
devotion ! But he saw she meant it — yes, 


The Penitent Passenger 


13 


indeed she did. These two years of butterfly 
life had been very pleasant, and why should she 
get married just because Lucille and Carrie and 
Elizabeth — ? 

But a lump rose in her throat as she took a 
last look around the familiar room, and realized 
that the pleasant visits she and Lucille had 
exchanged since their college days would end 
now. Even if she did visit Lucille in her new 
far-away home she would not see — er — would 
meet only strangers. 

“Ah, Miss Carpenter, why have you deserted 
us asked young Tyler from the door. 

“I just stepped in to see how soon we would 
have to put on our traveling-suits, and it looked 
so cozy and quiet I dropped in this chair to rest 
a moment.” 

“But have you been to supper? No? Then 
come with me.” 

Soon Nan was queening it in one corner of 
the dining-room, all the gayer for past depres- 
sion. There Will finally located her, but had 
not been able to rout young Tyler, when he 
realized with fierce regret that all chance of a 
private chat was past ; for the bride was going 
up to change her dress, and so must Nan. 

They pressed into the hall just in time to 
catch a glimpse of Lucille as she stood on the 


14 


The Penitent Passenger 


low turn of the stair, gracefully holding aloft a 
bunch of her bridal roses to which were tied a 
ring, a dime, and a thimble, which were to carry 
their time-honored omens to the expectant girls 
below. As the fragrant shower fell, one snowy 
bloom grazed Nan’s fluffy hair, kissed her white 
shoulder, then fell at her feet. 

Will stooped to pick it up, and then his fool- 
ish heart gave a bound, for tied to Nan’s rose 
was the fateful ring which foretold her early 
marriage. 

''May I — will you?” begged Will, brokenly, 
as he held the ring so that Nan alone could 
see it. 

Nan took the rose and ring with a lovely 
blush, but fled up the stair with only a non- 
committal "Thank you,” determined to make 
Will suffer for her mauvaise quatre d'heure 
alone in the library. 

Will’s duties as host then claimed his entire 
time until they were en route to the station, 
but he was comforted by the white rose which 
nestled at Nan’s belt. Even after they entered 
the station Will had to run back to the carriage 
for Lucille’s umbrella, while young Tyler hur- 
ried with Nan to the other end of the car shed, 
where her train was giving forth signs of 
speedy departure. 


The Penitent Passenger 


15 


Passing the recreant umbrella to Lucille with 
scant ceremony, Will dashed up to Nan’s win- 
dow just as the train slowly pulled out. The 
mute appeal and deepening despair on his face 
softened Nan. She snatched the rose from her 
belt, tore off the ring attached, and holding up 
her bare hand she slipped it on her third finger, 
with a world of acquiescence in her piquant, 
penitent face. A fluttering rose, hastily caught, 
and young Tyler’s chagrined congratulations 
were both necessary to convince Will of his 
good fortune. 





t 


1 


/'* ,1 . • 

I , • s 


» 




s 


0 


t 




% 


I 


4 4 


I 


i 


<» 





A WILLING VICTIM. 


The train from San Francisco wound its way 
over mountains and through canons, twisting 
and turning so that the passengers on one side 
of the coach had hardly congratulated them- 
selves on being in the shade before the sun was 
beaming on them again. 

Those energetic souls, to be found in every 
car, who had tried at first to play hide and seek 
with old Sol by changing sides, had long since 
subsided, discouraged by his activity. 

There was one passenger, however, on whom 
sunshine and shadow fell alike, unheeded. He 
sat alone, staring blankly before him, un- 
mindful of the gorgeous shifting scenery which 
many travel from other continents only to view. 
He was still young, or at least not old, for some 
Medusa-shock had chilled Youth into nonde- 
script Age. 

Although apparently alone, Harry Hardin 
handed the conductor two tickets, then roused 


18 


A Willing Victim 


from his strained stupor just long enough to 
account for the extra passage by nodding 
toward the express car ahead : “Wife — corpse.” 

For she who should have sat beside him in 
the fulness of health and the freshness of beauty 
was making the coveted trip back home in a 
long narrow box. 

The swaying, thundering cars could not hide 
her cold, stiff form from his staring eyes, nor 
could the rumbling wheels drown the sharp 
pistol shot that still rang in his ears — his work 
as surely as though his hand had pulled the 
trigger. 

There she lay, a crushed lily whose stem had 
been snapped when the flower should have been 
in full bloom, needing only the sunshine of 
happiness and the dew of appreciation to mature 
into a rare blossom whose fragrance would 
have sweetened his whole life. But happiness 
he had ruined, appreciation withheld. 

“Lilian died suddenly last night” was the 
brief telegram he had sent her father. 

In response to urgent messages and the 
promptings of his own conscience too lately 
roused, he was carrying her to the distant 
Southland of her happy girlhood, and through- 
out the long journey he saw nothing but flitting 
flashes of their past. 


A Willing Victim 


19 


If Harry Hardin had never sought that 
drowsy, moss-draped town on the peaceful 
river, Lilian might still have been its pride and 
joy. 

None so radiant and popular as she had been 
when he first met her. Every girl shared her 
sentimental secrets with Lilian, the children 
begged her to join their games under the 
spreading oaks, even the drooping clerks 
brightened when she entered the stores. 

Harry had selected that somnolent city 
(accounted a city in that section) to begin the 
practice of law, and might have succeeded had 
he given his profession half the time and 
attention he gave Miss Mildred Winter. 

Mildred’s brilliant brunette beauty and in- 
different, imperious manner had completely 
conquered him at once; while to her Harry’s 
devotion simply filled up the gap between a gay 
winter in Washington and a flirtatious summer 
at the seashore. 

When it dawned on Harry that he was merely 
a novelty among Mildred’s ex-playmates, a 
welcome break in the monotony of her native 
town, he racked his brain for some means of 
awakening her interest, and hit upon the ever 
new but equally threadbare plan of feigning 
devotion to another girl. But which girl ? 


20 


A Willing Victim 


Lilian, airy fairy Lilian (she might have 
inspired the original expression), happened to 
pass just as Harry evolved his unique scheme, 
and her smiling bow was the beginning of 
events that were to leave her coffined in an 
express car. 

Harry’s sudden change of devotion from 
Mildred to Lilian found loving credence with 
all the dwellers in that drowsy moss-draped 
town where Lilian was prime favorite. Her 
beauty and innocent faith made his pretty 
speeches only too easy, and the many proposals 
she had checked or refused during and since her 
school days made this new suitor seem only 
natural, while the rustling of Love’s own wings 
as he nestled in her heart filled out Harry’s halt- 
ing sentences, made harmony out of discord. 

Mildred continued indifferent and showed no 
symptoms of pique at Harry’s sudden defection ; 
all of which caused him to go faster and farther 
than he had intended. 

Almost before he realized it he had proposed 
to Lilian, been accepted, and congratulated by 
the whole town. 

True, her family looked on in silent disap- 
proval, but when her wish had always been 
their law, how could they begin to rebel in a 
crisis that involved her whole heart? 


A Willing Victim 21 

Caught thus in his own clumsy trap, Harry 
had found it difficult to keep up the role of 
accepted lover, and under plea of moving West, 
the marriage was hastened. 

Lilian's radiant, blushing beauty as a bride 
touched every one in the church, except the 
groom, who saw only Mildred Winter's smiling 
indifference as she sat serenely looking on at 
his self-made tragedy, as at any other social 
function. 

Harry counted as nothing the injustice to 
Lilian; he only realized his bitter disappoint- 
ment and the humiliation of being his own dupe. 

His unconcealed longing to be through with 
the festivities and away where he need keep up 
the farce no longer, passed as a commendable 
desire to begin anew the struggle for distinction 
in his profession with only the congenial com- 
panionship of his dainty bride. 

So all bade them God-speed to their new home 
in San Francisco, and only to the mother's heart 
came a chill foreboding that she might never 
again see her best beloved in health and happi- 
ness; but fortunately even a mother's anxious 
foresight could not imagine that in little more 
than a year she would be waiting in agony. 


22 


A Willing Victim 


while through western gorges the thundering 
train brought home her dead darling. 

Even her grief, however, could not equal that 
of the young husband who sat in the crowded, 
dusty car, alone with his horror and remorse; 
for to him only was known the unhappiness 
Lilian had endured since their marriage, ending 
in her suicide. 

Harry had given free rein to all the ugly 
feelings that possessed him on their arrival at 
San Francisco after their wedding, and Lilian 
was confronted with a change between lover 
and husband that falls to the lot of few brides. 

She made all manner of excuses to herself to 
cover the clay feet of her idol, after the manner 
of good women the world over. 

No doubt he had business troubles and she 
must not be so gay and childish, but must 
become a true helpmate ; then when his anxiety 
about money matters was relieved, maybe he 
would have time for the pretty speeches that 
had once been so sweet to her. 

Lilian took up her burden bravely, meeting 
Harry’s harshness with pathetic silence and 
lavishing on their little home a world of pride 
and work; work that was new to her tender 
hands, but bodily fatigue seemed to ease the 
aching emptiness of her heart. 


A Willing Victim 


23 


Her infectious gaiety was gone, but cheerful- 
ness remained, for she had great hope that after 
a while a new bond might draw him to her — • 
that slender bond by which so many women 
have hoped to hold indifferent husbands, which 
has held many a miserable wife who only en- 
dures her husband’s caprices because their 
children call him father. 

Lilian’s gentle patience was lost on Harry, 
who looked on himself as something of a 
martyr and made no effort to efface Mildred 
Winter’s glowing image from his heart. 

He was so absorbed in the role of hopeless 
lover that the tragedy of suppressed feeling 
daily enacted in his home was ignored. 

The growing hope with which Lilian fed her 
starving heart was certainly not shared by 
Harry, who was impatient at the thought of 
another burden. Being thus alone and un- 
happy, Lilian learned to love her unborn baby 
with a strength and tenderness that comes to 
few mothers so early. 

Consequently when they told her, as she lay 
spent and wan, that all her hope and suffering 
had been in vain, she looked once on the little 
still features, and then turned her face to the 
wall in mute despair. 


24 


A Willing Victim 


Even Harry was touched by her deep dis- 
tress, but any joy she might have felt in his 
unusual consideration was killed by his candid 
remark about the child’s death, that he thought 
“the little fellow had shown remarkable discre- 
tion for one so young and inexperienced in 
shirking the woes of the world !” 

Lilian’s health soon returned, but never her 
spirits. As summer came she found her first 
friend in San Francisco — the sea. 

At first she was attracted by its novelty, 
having been reared in an inland State, but soon 
it became a dear companion. Every afternoon 
when her work was over she would go out to 
the Park, take her seat by the sea-wall, and give 
herself up to the fascinations of the mighty 
ocean. 

When dull and gray it seemed in unison with 
her loveless life ; when wild and stormy it kept 
pace with the rebellion that sometimes welled 
up even in her gentle soul against Harry’s un- 
accountable change. 

All the loneliness and privation she had suf- 
fered in that strange city would have been as 
nothing could she thereby have won back 
Harry’s love^ — for with all his selfishness he 
had not been brutal enough to let her know 
that she had never possessed his affection or 


A Willing Victim 25 

to tell her that she was only a trap by which 
he had planned to catch Mildred Winter’s inter- 
est, but which had snared his own liberty. 

Sometimes on sunshiny days Lilian would 
turn her back on the glittering sea, whose glis- 
tening, frolicking waters then seemed to mock 
at her dull hopelessness ; waves of homesickness 
would surge up within, that left the salt spray 
in her eyes, blurring the Park’s trim walks into 
a likeness of the winding paths of her home 
so far away. “Oh, to go back there even for a 
few weeks !” she often sighed. 

Harry had succeeded moderately at law in 
San Francisco, but did not feel that he could 
afford the expense of a visit to her family ; or 
did they both dread to subject their unhappi- 
ness to the criticism of family affection ? 

This hour by the sea was her one diversion, 
but for several days bad weather had prevented 
her visiting this whimsical friend. 

Harry never came home before eight or nine, 
though he closed his office at six; so when the 
clouds suddenly lifted and the setting sun cast a 
golden glow over the city, Lilian was tempted 
to venture out, late as it was. 

She was a little timid at first, but soon found 
an added charm in the ruddy gloom gathering 
over sea and land, and the Park’s freedom 
from noisy crowds. 


26 


A Willing Victim 


She sought a bench beneath a sheltering 
shrub and lost all sense of time or trouble in 
the murmur of the waves, the rustle of glisten- 
ing foliage, and the fragrance of rain-beaten 
flowers stirred by Neptune^s bracing breath. 

But finally a familiar voice attracted her at- 
tention to a neighboring bench where two men 
had recently settled themselves. 

At first sound of Harry’s voice her natural 
impulse was to join him, but she checked her- 
self instantly; for he had never cared to intro- 
duce her to any of the acquaintances he had 
formed in San Francisco or to bring them to 
their home; in fact, though she did not realize 
it, this companion was one of the few who had 
any idea Harry Hardin was married. 

Their voices came so clearly through the 
evening hush that Lilian followed their con- 
versation without intending to. 

“You got in this afternoon?” asked Harry. 

“Yes,” answered the stranger. “I usually 
come back Monday mornings, but my little 
girl was not well to-day and begged me to 
wait until the afternoon train. Her grand- 
mother is devotion itself, but of course can 
not take the place of the little one’s own 
mother. Harry, may you never know what it 
means to lose the woman you love !” 


A Willing Victim 


27 


‘‘You had better thank God to have pos- 
sessed her at all!’’ answered Harry, savagely, 
as Mildred Winter’s indifferent face rose taunt- 
ingly before him. 

“Why should you say that? Your wife — ” 

“Oh, I had to marry her,” said Harry, im- 
patiently, his thoughts still with Mildred. 

“You mean — ?” and the man hesitated. 

“Oh, no, not that ; my wife’s all right,” Harry 
hastened to explain vaguely. “But I tried the 
old jealousy game. Made love to one girl 
trying to awaken the feelings of another and 
got caught in my own trap.” 

Lilian quickly realized that she had been the 
bait in the trap thus referred to in cold blood, 
and silently stole away in the darkness, with 
poignant humiliation quivering in every nerve. 

'‘Had to marry her !” 

She felt that even the casual glance of stran- 
gers might detect her overpowering shame, so 
she avoided the car and walked all the way 
home. 

For the first time she thanked God that her 
baby, welcomed only by herself, was dead. 

"Had to marry her I” 

Degradation and desolation kept pace with 
every feverish step. 


28 


A Willing Victim 


At last she entered her dark home. With 
set face, and stopping neither to think or pray, 
she groped her way to the drawer where Harry 
kept his pistol ; pressing the cold muzzle to her 
burning heart, she pulled the trigger. 

As Harry and his friend stood on the corner, 
after leaving the Park car, they heard a sharp 
report, but no commotion followed, so they 
decided it must have been some small boy cele- 
brating the Fourth of July in advance with a 
cannon cracker. 

So they parted, and Harry was soon looking 
in astonishment at the dark house, whose win- 
dows usually glowed with greeting, be his 
return never so late. He let himself in with 
his latch-key and stumbled on down the hall 
while he felt nervously about for a match. 

The first one he struck fell from his hand 
and was extinguished in a pool of warm blood, 
as he started back in horror from the crumpled 
form at his feet. 

Later on, after the first confusion and excite- 
ment he became convinced that Lilian had 
overheard his cruel remarks in the Park, for 
she still had on her hat when found, and a 
return ticket from the Park was in her purse. 

To what desperation must she have been 
driven to use a pistol — she who had protested 


A Willing Victim 


29 


nervously the first time she saw him put it 
under the pillow, who could never suppress a 
little scream if her hand touched it unexpect- 
edly, and who had often called him back to 
put it in the drawer before she made up the 
bed. 

All this and much more — his selfishness and 
unkindness — passed through his mind again 
and again as he sat there in the dusty car with 
the sun beaming on him, unheeded. 

He realized then when it was forever too 
late that he had loved to look upon Lilian’s 
delicate prettiness, had loved to watch her pa- 
tient industry in unwonted tasks, had taken 
comfort in the home she made for him. And, 
oh! fool that he had been, it was only the 
imaginary attractiveness of the unattainable 
that kept Mildred Winter’s dark shadow be- 
tween them. 

He tried to rouse himself and face the ordeal 
that yet awaited him. 

How could he tell Lilian’s family that she 
had been driven to a violent death? He had 
only telegraphed, ^‘Lilian died suddenly”; but 
even were he cowardly enough to continue the 
deception, that certificate required by the rail- 
roads on all coffins transported, said unmistak- 
ably ''Suicide.” 


30 


A Willing Victim 


The sharp lurches of the car, the jagged 
rocks far below the winding track finally 
caught even Harry's attention, but only to sug- 
gest an alternative preferable to facing Lilian's 
family with the truth, far preferable to this 
gnawing remorse: Would God he might be 
dashed to death here and now ! 

The blasphemous wish once suggested, rang 
through his feverish mind in unison with the 
roar and rumble of the wheels. 

Suddenly there was a jerk, a crash, an appa- 
rent demolition of the universe, and when 
Harry Hardin returned to consciousness it was 
to find himself pinned beneath massive timbers. 
The other passengers, unharmed, stood about 
in helpless sympathy, while the officials devised 
means to remove that crushing load. 

They deemed his fortitude magnificent. But 
he knew he was strengthened only by the hope 
of expiating in these moments of excruciating 
pain the year of sorrow and the hour of black 
humiliation and despair he had caused to her 
he had promised to love and cherish. 

In his death agony he felt drawn as by a 
magnet toward that fair young wife who lay 
serenely in the express car from which his 
coach had broken loose and dashed back down 


A Willing Victim 31 

the steep incline, overturning at the first sharp 
curve. 

When at last the crushing debris was lifted,^ 
Harry’s life blood gushed forth; he gasped 
brokenly : 

‘Tut me beside her — in the express car — 
Lilian! Forget! Forgive!” 





















MISDIRECTED 


Dr. Cameron rode briskly toward the coun- 
try post-office, for he had seen the mail-rider 
arrive fully fifteen minutes ago; said fifteen 
minutes had seemed so many hours while he 
listened, with the best show of patience he 
could muster, to old man Howard, who stopped 
him to describe his cook’s various ailments. 
When the long list of ‘"miseries” was re- 
counted, Dr. Cameron hastily wrote a prescrip- 
tion that soon raised old Aunt Scylla from her 
bed ; as she afterwards explained : “No wonder 
dat medicine raised me, chile, ’cause it wuz so 
strong dat ef yer corked it up rale tight de stop- 
per ’d shoot cl’ar up ter de ceilin’ !” 

While listening, the young physician had 
been mentally gloating over Elizabeth’s letter 
which was sure to be in this mail, and he could 
plainly see in his mind’s eye the familiar ad- 
dress, especially that hieroglyphic she used as 


34 


Misdirected 


the abbreviation of doctor. He had teased her 
about this once and she afterward adopted the 
subterfuge of writing it : 

''Charles L. Cameron, M. D., 

"Lawton, 

"Alabama” 

The moment he was free, Dr. Cameron 
threw Shellroad's bridle over the antique horse- 
rack and bounded up the steps with hasty, 
hearty greetings to the idlers and domino- 
players on the porch. The postmaster instantly 
held out the coveted letter and Dr. Cameron 
hurried off to enjoy his treasure alone, not even 
noticing the papers and patent medicine circu- 
lars which were being collected for him also. 

As he dropped the dainty envelope, unop- 
ened, into his inside pocket and rode off with 
a smile of anticipation, a sympathetic grin went 
around the group of loungers, for truly ‘‘all 
the world loves a lover,” and all the village 
felt a personal interest in this love-affair which 
had developed so rapidly in their midst the 
previous summer. 

Since Elizabeth's return to the city, the nu- 
merous and bulky letters that passed between 
the couple, with the publicity unavoidable in 


Misdirected 


35 


a country post-office, were taken as proof that 
the affair was more than a summer flirtation. 
But as the postmaster stood in the door that 
morning and watched Dr. Cameron riding so 
gaily away he announced : 

‘‘Charlie needn’t be hidin’ out ter read that 
letter, ’cause she sawed him off short this time. 
That letter didn’t have but one stamp on it an’ 
some of ’em have three, and one had four.” 

“Charlie is investin’ right smart in stamps 
himself, ain’t he?” asked a domino-player. 

“Yes, sir,” answered the postmaster emphati- 
cally; “if all er you boys ’d foller suit, this 
post-office ’d rise into another class.” 

They had all known the young doctor from 
boyhood, and many were more or less related 
to him, as is the case in most small communi- 
ties of long standing; but none ventured to jest 
about this affair to his face, for notwithstand- 
ing his habitually easy, approachable manner, 
it was evident that this subject was sacred to 
him. 

Of course some of his acquaintances took a 
pessimistic view of the whole affair; some 
thought the young doctor should be more 
firmly established in his practice before he mar- 
ried. Mrs. Carter, mother of the three Misses 
Carter, said he was plenty able to marry, but 


36 


Misdirected 


had made a great mistake in selecting a city 
girl, who was sure to be extravagant and dis- 
contented with life in humdrum Lawton. 

From their first meeting Elizabeth Russell 
had seemed to Dr. Cameron the embodiment of 
every pure dream of his past, every high hope 
of his future. She had blown into Lawton on 
the little whirlwind of gaiety caused by sum- 
mer visitors, bringing to the young doctor a 
breath of that social life he had tasted in the 
city when a medical student. During the long, 
happy summer days and mysterious, languor- 
ous moonlight nights that followed his first 
interest ripened rapidly into love. Their na- 
tures counterbalanced each other nicely, her 
calm firmness supplementing his restless en- 
ergy; her uniform cheerfulness, his easy depres- 
sion ; her equipoise, his sensitiveness. 

When, just before leaving, Elizabeth prom- 
ised to leave the home to which she had just 
returned from college, its sheltering affection, 
and the varied interests of city life, to come to 
this village and share his struggle for recogni- 
tion, — all this for love of him, — Dr. Cameron’s 
love was augmented by gratitude into rever- 
ence. 

And now, after a night of nursing and the 
morning round of calls, the tired young physi- 


Misdirected 


37 


cian felt the need of one of those comforting, 
stimulating letters which had become necessary 
to his happiness and had so brightened the 
long, dreary winter. Turning Shellroad down 
the lane through whose moonlit shadows they 
were strolling when first she gave him cause 
to hope she loved him, he opened her letter and 
read: 

“My Dear Mr. Field: 

“Please accept my sincere thanks for the 
lovely book you sent Christmas, and your deli- 
cate remembrance of our pleasant though brief 
acquaintance. The poem is an old favorite of 
mine and the illustrations are particularly 
pleasing. 

“With greetings of this happy season, I am, 
“Very sincerely yours, 

“Elizabeth Russell. ^ 

“Montgomery, Alabama, 

“January 2nd.'' 

Oh! the bitterness of Dr. Cameron's dis- 
appointment, which in a moment was swal- 
lowed up in the rising tide of fierce anger, 
unreasoning jealousy. She whom he deemed 
loyal in the most trivial matters, receiving 
presents from another man — a mere passing 


38 


Misdirected 


acquaintance at that! Her letter to him, for 
which he had fairly thirsted, was of such small 
importance that she carelessly placed it in the 
wrong envelope. There! did that man Field 
receive Dr. Cameron’s letter? He winced to 
think of strange eyes criticizing those tender, 
comforting words, then fiercely, meanly hoped 
such might be the case, for that would effec- 
tually nip Mr. Field’s hopes in the bud and also 
embarrass Elizabeth. 

Dr. Cameron now gave free rein to all the 
unjust suspicions that rushed upon him, in- 
creased by the stings of poverty, which had 
kept him from showering flowers, books, and 
remembrances on his love; and as he galloped 
wildly, aimlessly along jealousy made of this 
molehill, this misdirected letter, a mountain 
whose chilling shadow obscured his whole 
future. 

Without stopping for cooler thought, he ran 
into his office and dashed off a jealous, imper- 
ious note that was certain to offend one who 
had given him cause to trust her. 

Then mounting Shellroad, who thought 
some patient must be sick unto death, he rode 
furiously to the cross-roads where the mail- 
rider would soon pass with the outgoing mail. 
That official received the letter with a knowing. 


Misdirected 


39 


encouraging grin that met with such a scowl 
from Dr. Cameron that the old darky looked 
after him dubiously : 

“Marse Charlie must er got de big haid. 
Too much love er medicine, one er de udder. 

The ill-advised letter was hardly out of Dr. 
Cameron’s hand before he regretted his haste; 
but his was a sensitive nature, responding read- 
ily to kindness, though easily wounded by any 
injury, real or imaginary. Elizabeth, on the 
contrary, carried common sense even into the 
emotional realm ; but like most people who are 
slow to anger, she was hard to appease. 

He passed a miserable night, during which 
he dreamed alternately of Elizabeth as his wife, 
fulfilling every anticipated happiness, and as a 
heartless flirt who received mountains of books 
and pyramids of flowers from every man but 
himself. He awoke hopeless and dispirited, 
and after a perfunctory round of visits to the 
sick, was riding sullenly past the post-office 
when the postmaster called out : 

"‘Say, Doc, ain’t yer cornin’ for yer letter 
to-day ?” 

His heart gave a great bound, and then sank 
as he remembered his hasty, heedless note. 

This proved to be the letter he should have 
received the day before, to which was added : 


40 


Misdirected 


know you were disappointed in the note 
you received yesterday, but hope this will make 
amends. Callers came while I was writing, 
but I was determined your letter should not 
miss the mail, so I hurriedly sealed your envel- 
ope and handed it to the postman before going 
in the parlor. Mr. Field’s note being unimpor- 
tant, could wait. 

‘Tortunately, he did not get yours, for when 
I returned to my desk to direct his envelope, it 
seemed too thick, so I investigated and have 
discovered my mistake just in time to hurry 
this off to you. I haven’t time for more now, 
but you shall have a long letter to brighten 
that Sunday afternoon you find so dreary. 
Never mind, after a while that will be our own 
particular time. But if I start on the future 
this will miss the mail again. 

“Lovingly, 

“Elizabeth.” 

After reading her dear letter and trustful 
postscript in which it was not even deemed nec- 
essary to explain Mr. Field or his little holiday 
remembrance. Dr. Cameron’s peremptory note, 
which she had not then received, seemed even 
more contemptible in his own eyes. He would 
have given much to have met Elizabeth’s con- 
fidence with the same unquestioning faith. 


Misdirected 


41 


The dreary Sunday afternoon did not bring 
the promised letter, but Dr. Cameron eased his 
heart somewhat by writing a long, repentant 
one to Elizabeth, confessing his injustice and 
begging forgiveness. He received the same 
letter, unopened, a few days later, accompanied 
by a package containing his picture and the 
few love-tokens she had been willing to accept. 

In spite of this stern, silent breaking of all 
ties between them. Dr. Cameron besieged Eliz- 
abeth with letters, and was going to Montgom- 
ery when he noticed in a paper the announce- 
ment that : 

‘‘Col. R. M. Russell, being called to various 
cities of the North and West on important busi- 
ness, left yesterday to be absent several months. 
He was accompanied by Mrs. Russell and Miss 
Elizabeth Russell, both of whom will be sadly 
missed in social circles.” 

Left thus without a clue to her whereabouts. 
Dr. Cameron snatched at the slight hope of 
news obtained through the Montgomery pa- 
pers, and few women of fashion ever pored over 
the society news as eagerly as this young coun- 
try doctor. 

Of course the cessation of letters was imme- 
diately noticed at the post-office and soon gen- 
erally known throughout the village, where 


42 


Misdirected 


conjecture ran riot. The comments were va- 
ried but kindly, except in the case of Mrs. 
Carter, mother of the three Misses Carter, who 
elaborated the ever-odious ‘T told you so.’^ 

Dr. Cameron’s friends were afraid to inquire 
the cause of the rupture or to express sym- 
pathy, for he had sunk into a state of morbid 
gloom that repelled all advances. Neither by 
will nor work could he banish haunting sug- 
gestions of his broken dream — the house she 
had visited, the side-saddle he had borrowed 
for her to test Shellroad’s famous pace and 
afterward bought for her future use, and the 
little vacant house he had selected for their 
home mocked him often. 

Several months later, when spring had soft- 
ened nature’s desolation, but heightened Dr. 
Cameron’s agony of regret, he was passing the 
little vacant cottage when a pair of mocking- 
birds building near the gate positively flaunted 
their happiness in his face. He checked Shell- 
road, and settling in his saddle gazed long and 
grimly on his own empty nest. The rose on 
the porch was putting out its buds in vain; 
the rows of late hyacinths and narcissi breathed 
of a past love who had planted them long ago 
and nodded in vain to the future love promised 
them; the birds twittered over the senseless 


Misdirected 


43 


jealousy that had desolated the snug little 
home. Suddenly wheeling his horse around, 
Dr. Cameron rode back to the post-ofhce and 
announced that he would soon move to Brant- 
ley, one of the boom towns that were spring- 
ing up as if by magic in the iron district of 
Alabama. 

The Montgomery paper found its way to Dr. 
Cameron’s new address, and even among the 
rushing, exciting scenes in which he soon took 
a leading part, the society column was not 
neglected. Although he was too proud and 
obstinate to write again or go to see Elizabeth, 
she was still the most vital, interesting person 
in the world to him. Occasionally his news- 
paper search would be rewarded by a scrap of 
information, tantalizing in its brevity : 

“Col. R. M. Russels and family have returned 
from their western trip.” 

“Miss Russell is entertaining a gay house- 
party.” 

“Miss Russell led the Easter german with 
Mr. Knight. She was radiantly beautiful in 
a daintily embroidered mousseline.” 

“Mrs. Russell and her charming daughter. 
Miss Elizabeth, left yesterday for Tate Springs 
and other summer resorts.” 


44 


Misdirected 


In fact, it would have seemed that Elizabeth 
was entirely given up to frivolity, had not the 
paper also stated from time to time that : 

‘‘Miss Russell sang at the concert given for 
the benefit of the Hospital/’ 

“Miss Elizabeth Russell read a paper on 
Ruskin at the Girls’ Literary Club.” 

“During Mrs. Hart’s illness Miss Russell 
taught in the Free Kindergarten.” 

All of which showed that Elizabeth was 
leading a well-rounded life. 

Meanwhile, Dr. Cameron rose to the head 
of his profession in one of the few boom towns 
that became a permanent success. He was 
much sought socially, and as his bitterness at 
women in general and Elizabeth in particular 
wore off, his attentions to Brantley belles be- 
came regular and general. 

“Too general to mean anything,” com- 
plained Mrs. Houston, who boarded at the 
same hotel and ate at the table with Dr. Cam- 
eron. Being childless, this old lady took a 
maternal interest in all young people, and this 
young physician, who could be so debonair, 
but was usually so depressed, became a favorite 
enigma. He seemed to appreciate her interest 
unless it took a matrimonial turn, and was pro- 


Misdirected 


45 


vokingly obtuse when she hinted it was es- 
pecially desirable that professional men should 
marry early. 

One night, however, this gentle schemer took 
fresh hope. They were sitting on the porch 
when a fire broke out in the next block. In- 
stantly the usual mob gathered, and as Dr. 
Cameron intended doing active service, he 
asked Mrs. Houston to care for his watch and 
pocket-book until he returned. Soon after- 
wards some one asked how long it took the fire 
department to respond, and Mrs. Houston 
opened Dr. Cameron’s watch to see. But the 
wrong lid flew open and instead she saw the 
face of a young girl, with big, serious eyes and 
a sweet, dimpling mouth. The rounded cheeks 
and broad, high forehead were softened by the 
daintiest, airiest little curls of spun-gold, though 
the brows and lashes were heavy and dark. 

The crowd on the porch gradually dispersed, 
but Mrs. Houston waited alone until Dr. Cam- 
eron returned from the fire ; as she handed him 
the watch she said gently : 

‘T accidentally found that picture in your 
watch. Is that the reason you don’t take my 
advice and marry ?” 

"'Yes,” he answered, so sadly that she asked 
hurriedly : 


46 


Misdirected 


she dead ?” 

Dr. Cameron thought of Elizabeth’s happy, 
busy life and laughed bitterly. 

‘‘Yes, she’s dead — to me,” he said as he 
turned away abruptly. 

After that Mrs. Houston observed her pro- 
tege with renewed interest, but she failed to 
discover anything beyond the fact that he was 
fagged and needed a rest from his heavy prac- 
tice. 

“Poor fellow, he should have a quiet little 
home to rest in after battling with disease and 
death all day, and some one to coddle and 
amuse him. He is naturally domestic and hates 
the dreary publicity of hotel life. I wonder 
who she is and why she is ‘dead’ to him ?” the 
motherly soul mused, recalling the sweet, 
strong face pictured in his watch ; but she never 
dared question him again. 

So it was with a heavy heart Mrs. Houston 
departed for her summer outing, as she was 
compelled to leave her husband and her protege 
to endure the heat and dust alone. But once 
established at Tate Springs her natural love for 
young people soon attracted the girls and she 
was once more at her favorite trade of match- 
making. She was unaccountably drawn to one 
girl whose face was hauntingly familiar, even 


Misdirected 


47 


before they met. On being introduced as Mrs. 
Houston, of Brantley, one girl cried out mis- 
chievously : 

‘‘O Mrs. Houston, maybe you can tell us 
something of Dr. Cameron, who moved to 
Brantley when this naughty Elizabeth dropped 
him 

Mrs. Houston instantly understood why 
Elizabeth’s face had haunted her, and also why 
the girl flushed so painfully, even while skil- 
fully parrying this unexpected thrust. 

The elder lady quietly cultivated the younger 
one, studying her carefully all the while. She 
rarely mentioned Dr. Cameron, but when she 
did it was to show him in his best light; she 
ached to tell her of that picture in his watch, 
but there was something about Elizabeth that 
warned off familiarity. 

Nevertheless, Dr. Cameron’s friend decided 
that he should at least have a chance to speak 
for himself again, for a man who had loved 
this girl once must love her always. So Mrs. 
Houston sat down and wrote her husband that 
she would not stay another week without see- 
ing both her boys. She would expect him next 
Saturday without fail and he must bring Dr. 
Cameron, who needed a rest anyway, and be- 
sides she had a special reason. 


48 


Misdirected 


All of which was a mystery to Mr. Houston ; 
but having been ‘‘particeps criminis” to many 
of his wife’s matrimonial schemes, he obeyed 
without question and without arousing Dr. 
Cameron’s curiosity. 

Saturday afternoon Mrs. Houston welcomed 
two dusty travelers, but gave no ‘‘special rea- 
son” for being glad to see Dr. Cameron. She 
had wisely decided to let matters now take their 
own course. Naturally, she would keep Dr. 
Cameron in tow that first afternoon, and hoped 
to be present when he and Elizabeth met. 

But when Dr. Cameron came down from his 
room, rested and refreshed, he didn’t see the 
Houstons among the promenaders on the long 
veranda enjoying the afternoon concert. The 
inquisitive stare that greets every newcomer at 
a watering-place, especially an unclaimed 
young man, grated on Dr. Cameron, so he 
quickly passed out, beyond the formal beds of 
gaudy flowers into a little grove of maples. 

Here all was in harmony with his isolation 
and the approaching twilight, while the soft- 
ened pulsations of the Italian orchestra seemed 
but his own longings made audible. Suddenly 
he stood before a rustic bench where a girl in 
white sat twining clover chains and telling a 
fairy-tale to the child beside her, who had 


Misdirected 


49 


heaped her lap with fragrant blooms. The 
woman lifted her head and once more Dr. 
Cameron looked deep down into sweet, solemn, 
steadfast eyes that had once glowed with an- 
swering love in the moonlight long ago. 

‘‘Elizabeth!” 

“Dr. Cameron!” 

He paused, unable to voice commonplace 
inanities, and restrained from eager, repentant 
entreaties by the child’s presence. 

Elizabeth rose precipitately, the clover fall- 
ing in a fragrant shower about her feet ; for a 
moment her face hardened as she thought of 
his dictatorial note, his unreasonable jealousy; 
then she remembered the pitiable starvation of 
affection and ambition which had incited that 
suspicion, the many letters she had returned un- 
opened, his sensitive nature. She also realized 
vividly that all the interests, joys, and triumphs 
of her own life had palled, would become in- 
creasingly vapid, because her heart ached con- 
tinually for this man who had wounded her 
pride, had doubted, had dictated to her. 

“Elizabeth, forgive me, trust me once more,” 
he breathed under cover of the gathering 
gloom, despite the listening child. 

Elizabeth’s face must have signaled the ten- 
der answer forming on her lips, for Dr. Cam- 


50 


Misdirected 


eron’s impulsive movement aroused her sense 
of propriety. Throwing the clover-chain 
around the little girl, she said naively : 

‘'Gladys, run see if oh, just run away, 

like a good child !” 

With a sigh for the interrupted fairy-tale, 
the little girl slowly sauntered away, but like 
the woman of old she could not forbear a back- 
ward glance; though the tableau presented did 
not turn her into a saline column, it was highly 
enlightening and she drew some savory conclu- 
sions therefrom. 

At the edge of the grove Gladys met Mrs. 
Houston anxiously peering about. 

“My dear, have you seen a strange young 
man wandering alone out here? He is my 
guest, but I failed to meet him on the hotel 
veranda and fear he may feel awkward and 
lonesome.” 

“You needn't worry about him any more,” 
answered that wise little maiden. “He came 
down here by himself, looking lonesome, but he 
met Miss Elizabeth Russell and they sent me 
away, and now they’re — Well, they must 
have known each other before, or maybe 
they’re kin,” she kindly added in extenuation. 

“0-o-oh! is that so! Already!” murmured 
the matchmaker ecstatically, yet vaguely dis- 


Misdirected 


51 


appointed that her services were no longer 
necessary. ‘Then you and I may as well go 
back to the hotel, Gladys.’" 

But that couple on the rustic bench under 
the maples, having blotted out past mistakes 
with many kisses and pledged future loyalty 
with many more, awoke to the present just in 
time to see Mrs. Houston stealing away. 

With one accord and hands enlinked, they 
ran toward her ; happy, impulsive Dr. Cameron 
fairly hugged and kissed the dear old schemer, 
being in excellent practice just then; while 
Elizabeth cuddled up against her and mur- 
mured endearing nothings that thrilled the 
childless woman. Gladys stood unnoticed, 
looking and listening ; then veering from a pre- 
cocious little woman back to an imaginative 
child, she asked solemnly : 

“Is Mrs. Houston a fairy godmother?” 

“She is, she certainly is,” asserted Dr. Cam- 
eron and Elizabeth, fervently, in one breath. 

“The good fairy who unravels Jealousy’s 
tangle,” explained Dr. Cameron. 

“And melts the ice of Pride,” added Eliza- 
beth softly, with a happy laugh. 



THE PEANUT PRINCE 


"‘Bar, now/’ said old Uncle Calvin, as he set 
a large basket of peanuts besides his “young 
mistis,” as he persisted in calling Margaret; 
this may have been the diplomatic way he es- 
caped saying Miss Maggie, as in the days 
before she assumed long skirts and a longer 
name. “Yas’m,” he repeated regretfully, 
“heah is de las’ er dis year’s crap er goobers.” 

“Thank goodness !” exclaimed Margaret, 
attacking the new basket energetically; “for if 
I had to shell peanuts much longer my fingers 
would wear off. And now I can spend these 
glorious afternoons galloping on Daisy-dear 
instead of being cooped up in this stuffy seed- 
room watching you darkies sack the peanuts.” 

“Humph ! you mought er watched dem good- 
fer-nothin’ chillun that ho’ped us ’tel dey got 
sick eatin’ raw goobers, but not me. I ain’t no 
eye-sarvant !” protested this faithful remnant 
of a retinue of house-servants, who was now 


54 


The Peanut Prince 


foreman of the plantation and man-of-all-work, 
but who retained the sign of a butler as recog- 
nized in olden times, namely, side-burns or 
mutton-chop whiskers. These and his woolly 
hair were now grizzled with work and years, 
but his pride was untouched. 

‘‘An’ ’stid er bein’ glad dis is de las’ er de 
goobers you better thank yer stars dey wuz so 
plentiful dis year an’ dat yer mother had de 
luck ter sell ’em all to one man at sech er big 
price ; chillern is so ongrateful !” 

“That’s true. Uncle Calvin, and of course 
I didn’t mean I had to watch you, whom Mama 
trusts with everything, and who taught me the 
right way to shell peanuts when I was a tiny 
tot, long before we thought of raising them 
for the market. I haven’t forgotten how you 
used to dig some for me before the proper 
time, and take me down to your cabin and 
roast them in the embers of your fireplace. 
And while we were waiting for them to brown 
you would tell me about slavery days and sing 
‘Run, nigger, run, or de patterole ’ll ketch 
yer !’ or you would talk about the camp-meeting 
and sing ‘Roll, Jordan, roll!’ And when I was 
sick the day after those premature feasts, you 
would never tell on me. Then sometimes you 
would pinch open one end of a peanut and clamp 


The Peanut Prince 


55 


it on my ear for an earring and I would ^lay 
lady’ until my poor ears would nearly burn off.” 

‘‘Dat’s so,” chuckled Uncle Calvin, fully mol- 
lified, ^*us niggers useter feel mighty sorry fer 
you when yer Papa wuz sick so long an’ yer 
Mama tuck up all her time wid him, an’ when 
you got tired er yer nurse an yer play-pretties, 
you’d come ter me ter ’muse yer.” 

“And I certainly am grateful for the good 
crop of peanuts this year, for it will enable 
me to return to the dear old college in Virginia 
and graduate next June,” continued Margaret, 
determined to repent in full. “You know the 
money from the cotton this year finishes paying 
off the mortgage on the place, so from now on 
things will be easier for us all. As for Mama, 
only you and I, Uncle Calvin, realize the strug- 
gle she has made to keep the old plantation 
since Papa’s long illness involved it in debt. 
But when I come back next June to stay, I am 
going to help her and make her take some pleas- 
ure. But all this doesn’t make shelling pea- 
nuts by the hour exhilarating,” Margaret added 
sotto voce. 

“Yas’m,” mused Uncle Calvin, who always 
opposed to a word he didn’t understand some 


56 


The Peanut Prince 


observation on life in general, which he under- 
stood thoroughly; “yas’m, you’ll help an’ com- 
fort yer Mama like most girls do.” 

‘‘How is that?” 

“By failin’ in love wid some feller, in Ver- 
ginny mos’ likely, an’ leavin’ her fer good an’ 
all jest ez soon ez she’s got you raised right.” 

“Indeed, I am not in love with any man in 
Virginia !” said Margaret, emphatically. 

“Den dar’s still hope fer Marse Dave Morri- 
son,” chuckled the ebony diplomat slyly. “It’s 
scan’lous de way you treats dat man, an’ him 
so rich too !” 

Margaret only laughed, and asked hastily : 

“Who bought all our peanuts at such a good 
price?” 

“De Peanut Prince.” 

“And who may he be ?” 

“Don’t you see dat next room full er bags 
all marked ‘Henry M. Keith, Norfolk, Va.’ ?” 

“Virginia! Well, then, maybe I’ll eat some 
of our own peanuts this winter when we girls 
are feasting. And now. Uncle Calvin,” she 
added coaxingly, “I can easily finish shelling 
these if you will go and catch Daisy-dear, for 
there is still time for a little ride before sunset. 
You know this is my last week at home.” 


The Peanut Prince 


57 


‘^All right, Miss Mag — Miss Margaret, but 
be keerful not to git no trash in 'em, fer us 
takes pride in de clean crap us sends out," 
boasted Uncle Calvin as he limped away for 
a bridle. 

Margaret finished shelling the peanuts, then 
looked through the window to the pasture 
where Daisy-dear was coquetting with poor 
lame Uncle Calvin and the bridle. In pure 
idleness Margaret picked up a peanut shell and 
in one satiny inner surface she wrote, ‘The 
Peanut Prince," then following a school-girl 
habit she scribbled her own name, Margaret 
Allbritton, in the other. 

Just then Uncle Calvin outwitted Daisy-dear 
and led her captive toward stable and sad- 
dle; Margaret, realizing that she must put on 
her habit quickly or miss her gallop through 
the golden autumn sunset, carelessly tossed the 
scribbled shell away. It fell in one of the sacks 
ready for shipment. 

A week later Margaret took the limited ex- 
press back to the classic village which boasts 
the college from which she was to graduate 
the following June. The peanuts followed by 
freight and landed in Norfolk in the large 
musty warehouse of Henry M. Keith, 


58 


The Peanut Prince 


This young man, who had inherited a whole- 
sale produce business from his father several 
years ago, was just back from a prolonged 
hunting trip through the West. Old Shaw, 
the manager of this department, showed the 
young proprietor through the warehouse the 
day after his return. Keith was surprised at 
the endless rows of peanut sacks. 

‘‘You see,’' explained Shaw, “peanuts have 
become a fad with some health-food people 
lately, and I have bought them in such quanti- 
ties, in your name of course, that you are now 
known as the Peanut Prince.” 

“Well, well !” laughed Keith, “ ‘be sure your 
sins will find you out.’ I little thought my 
youthful predilection would be publicly labeled 
on me in this fashion, and as for peanuts being 
a health-food, the idea is enough to make my 
old black mammy emerge from her grave with 
a bottle of medicine.” 

“Now these,” Shaw went on, “are from Ala- 
bama, the cream of the market in flavor, full 
weight, and free from trash or hulls. Try 
some,” he suggested, ripping open the corner 
of a sack with his knife. To his chagrin a large 
shell lay right on top, the two halves still joined 
by a few filaments. 


The Peanut Prince 


59 

‘The first trash I ever received from those 
people/’ Shaw said. 

“That isn’t trash,” exclaimed Keith, his keen 
eyes noting the writing inside, “that’s — why, 
that’s my new ‘entitlements,’ as the darkies 
would say. See, ‘The Peanut Prince,’ and on 
this half, ‘Margaret Allbritton.’ Well, here’s 
to her unknown highness, the Princess of Pea- 
nutland !” And Keith flipped the shells into the 
water below, where they careened about gaily 
for a moment, then settled calmly for their 
long voyage together. 

Was it prophetic? 

It might well have been, for the next June 
found the Peanut Prince and Margaret Allbrit- 
ton dancing together at the commencement hop. 
Though each instantly recognized the other’s 
name, neither mentioned the fact. Mr. Keith 
could hardly have explained just what re- 
strained him from alluding to the little con- 
tretemps; Margaret was a belated victim of 
that false pride which aforetime kept Southern 
people from acknowledging they ever sold any- 
thing. Keith’s alma mater was in the same 
town where Margaret Allbritton had been 
studying, and he was enjoying his first visit 
since assuming business cares. As the new 
president of the Alumni, he surveyed the ball- 


60 


The Peanut Prince 


room, surrounded by members of his fraternity. 

^'Who is the handsome girl by the window, 
with reddish hair, brown eyes and dimpled 
shoulders ?” Keith had asked a youngster who 
seemed a sort of social encyclopedia. 

“Ah, that’s Miss Margaret Allbritton, of 
Alabama ; the nicest kind of a girl, who doesn’t 
think every fellow who admires her is going 
to marry her whether-or-no. Guess she’s been 
used to beaux all her life,” answered the Social 
Encyclopedia, who loved every pretty girl and 
was able to marry no one. 

“Allbritton — Margaret Allbritton — where ? 
Ah !” murmured Keith, as he mentally recalled 
the clear scribbling in a peanut shell. “Will 
you introduce me ?” 

“Certainly.” 

So Margaret Allbritton and Henry Keith 
were soon dancing together. Though she could 
almost hear Uncle Calvin’s unctuous proclama- 
tion of Mr. Keith as the Peanut Prince, coupled 
with certain predictions, and though Mr. Keith 
had a clear and persistent mental view of their 
names united within a peanut shell, neither 
made any allusion to them. 

“Do you return to Alabama as soon as Com- 
mencement is over?” he asked, while they were 
dancing. Now as a rule Keith thought talking 


The Peanut Prince 


61 


dispelled half the charm of dancing, but he 
questioned at random then, hoping that when 
Margaret turned to answer, that distracting 
little curl might touch his face again. 

“No,’' she answered, looking into his eyes, 
but swiftly releasing her hand to brush the 
truant lock back into the auburn mass worn low 
on her neck; “no, I am going to Grace Trip- 
lett’s house-party.” 

“What luck! I have just promised Tom 
Triplett to come down next week and help him 
entertain his sister’s guests.” 

If Henry Keith had told the exact truth he 
would have said Tom Triplett had begged him 
to go, but had only received a half promise; 
however, it is irrational to expect a man to 
express himself literally while dancing with a 
sweet girl graduate with glorious brown eyes, 
errant auburn curls, and dimpled chin and 
shoulders. 

And Margaret thought — ^but do girls think 
during commencement dances? don’t they just 
float on billows of perfumed organdy and pul- 
sating music from the routine of school life 
into the pleasures and opportunities of woman- 
hood? A house-party is not much more con- 


62 


The Peanut Prince 


ducive to mental research than dancing, yet 
Margaret was compelled to think during that 
week at the Tripletts’ home. 

Keith returned to Norfolk a few days to 
arrange his business for this additional week’s 
absence; so when he arrived at the Tripletts’ 
the young people were pretty well paired off. 
Ordinarily he might have felt de trop, but he 
was so intensely fascinated with Margaret that 
he soon scared off the young Social Encyclo- 
pedia who had introduced them, and who was 
claiming most of Margaret’s time. 

Mr. Keith arrived late Saturday night, and 
in that orderly household family prayers before 
breakfast Sunday morning was an inviolable 
custom, handed down from time immemorial. 
Not even a house-party could interfere with 
that religious routine. Some of the visitors 
treated this novelty as a serious joke, others 
secretly thought a longer nap preferable; but 
Mr. Keith noticed that Margaret Allbritton 
accepted it just as — well, just as he wished she 
should. In fact, one of her most attractive 
qualities was her adaptability — none so light of 
heart and foot at a dance as she, none so quick 
to serve in distress, none so essentially femi- 
nine in taste and expression. She was evidently 
a girl who would make a true home for the 


The Peanut Prince 


63 


man she loved, whether they were cramped 
within four square walls or surrounded by an 
establishment where servants and ceremony 
sometimes serve to chill the home atmosphere. 

All that rare June Sunday the house-party 
acted as a committee of the whole, and not 
until the moon was high in the heavens did 
Keith succeed in cornering Margaret amid the 
fragrant shadows of the honeysuckled porch. 
There he told her, among other things, of find- 
ing their names written in a peanut shell and 
of tossing them, thus linked, upon the sea for 
their life journey. Of course she explained 
how she had scribbled them therein in a mo- 
ment of idleness, and asked him please not to 
report the matter to Uncle Calvin, who would 
consider the trash had ruined his reputation for 
sending out a clean crop. 

The thought of old Calvin brought a flush 
to her face, for had he not predicted she would 
fall in love with a Virginian, when they sat 
in the old seed-room, whence Henry M. Keith’s 
name was visible even as they talked ? But, no, 
she must think only of her little mother rejoic- 
ing to welcome her home permanently, and of 
Dave Morrison, good old Dave, who had loved 
her since she could remember, which love she 
had always intended to reciprocate some day. 


64 


The Peanut Prince 


So Mr. Keith’s romantic presentation of their 
linked names’ peculiar journey from her hand 
to his seemed to fall far short of arousing the 
interest he had hoped it would ; seemed, indeed, 
to arrest that free and frank friendship he had 
so prized. Thereafter she accepted his atten- 
tions, his books and flowers, as a matter of 
course, but artfully evaded every trap he laid 
for a tete-a-tete; and when that Elysian week 
was over, she bade him good-by so nonchal- 
antly that he feared to ask if he might write, 
but determined to do so unsanctioned. 

When Margaret arrived on the old planta- 
tion in Alabama, “for good-and-all,” as Uncle 
Calvin expressed it, there was great rejoic- 
ing, in which she joined most heartily of all. 
But as the summer passed away Margaret be- 
came restless. She found Dave Morrison more 
and more tiresome — surely, he had not always 
been so impossible? — and Henry Keith’s auda- 
cious letters more and more absorbing. 

The first gray drizzly autumn day that kept 
Margaret indoors, was passed in mental vacilla- 
tion between the pleas of love and duty. Even 
when the mists cleared and gave place to a 
gorgeous sunset, Margaret ventured no farther 
than the front porch, where she lay in the 
hammock until dusk, fighting her battle alone 


The Peanut Prince 


65 


and unnoticed, she thought. But finally her 
mother came up the steps from her usual visit 
to the family cemetery over on the hill, and 
sitting down beside the hammock, caught Mar- 
garet's listless hand within her own. 

‘‘And so my little girl left her heart in old 
Virginia?" she asked softly and without pre- 
face. 

“O Mother, what makes you say that?" and 
Margaret sprang up in her astonishment. But 
when she saw the tender sympathy in her 
mother's face, she slid to her knees, and nest- 
ling closely, told her all about it from the 
beginning — Margaret Allbritton and the Pea- 
nut Prince in a peanut shell — to their meeting 
at Commencement and their chance to become 
really acquainted at the house-party. 

“But, Mother, I remembered you and Dave 
and tried not to — " 

“Are you engaged to Dave ?" 

“No, Mother dear; but you know he loves 
me and I always thought I would love him 
some day. He is such a good fellow, and his 
place joins ours, and I would still be near 
you — but now it's all different and at times 
I can't bear him ! I realize what a disappoint- 
ment all this must be to you, and after a while 
I may forget Mr. Keith and like Dave better, 
enough to marry — " 


66 


The Peanut Prince 


‘"Margaret/^ interrupted her mother ten- 
derly, yet a little sternly, ‘‘your father died 
when you were so young that you may be for- 
given for not remembering the intense love we 
bore each other. I left my family, my all, and 
came down here on this plantation, remote 
from all the pleasures and advantages of the 
city life to which I had been accustomed, be- 
cause I loved him. To many my life may have 
sejemed sad and dreary. I nursed him for 
years, only to see him die at last. You have 
been my one joy and consolation, yet your 
father’s sickness kept me from sharing many 
of your childish endearments, the necessity of 
sending you away for your education separa- 
ted us later. I have spent years economizing 
to pay off the mortgage incurred for luxuries 
and travel during your father’s illness, and to 
send you to college. But all this was endured 
for those I loved, and so under it all I have 
probably felt more real contentment than many 
women whose every enjoyment is chilled by 
heart-emptiness. Why should I deny you the 
crown of womanhood which beautified my life 
for a while and still lends it dignity and peace 
and hope? I feel that I am permitted to de- 
monstrate afresh my love for your father by 
teaching his child — our child — that love is the 


The Peanut Prince 


67 


one essential consideration to true marriage. 
Not that I won’t miss you.” And her voice 
broke as the dread picture of future loneli- 
ness unrolled before her. Margaret caressed 
her in silence, for this revelation of the inner 
life of one usually so reticent was embarras.s- 
ingly precious. 

‘‘Miss Mag — Miss Margaret, heah’s er 
twirlegram fer you,” announced old Uncle Cal- 
vin as he limped around to the front steps with 
the yellow envelope held gingerly aloft. He 
was preternaturally solemn, for in that remote 
locality a telegram was usually a harbinger of 
ill tidings. 

But when joy overspread Margaret’s every 
feature he broke out with the license accorded 
old family servants : 

“Ki-yi, dem thick letters couldn’t hold all 
he got er say ! When he cornin’, Miss Mag — 
Miss Margaret?’^ 

“To-morrow!” she announced joyfully, and 
catching her little mother in her strong young 
arms, danced her around the porch until every 
trace of grief, past or future, was routed. 

For Mr. Keith had found Margaret’s letters 
so charming, but non-committal, that he had 
wired his departure for Alabama, without so 
much as adding, by your leave. The long jour- 
ney was given over to endless speculation as to 


68 


The Peanut Prince 


the reception he would be accorded, as to her 
mother’s prejudices, as to the exact status of 
that fellow Dave who seemed to take her 
everywhere. 

When Mr. Keith stepped from the car to 
the little country platform the next afternoon. 
Uncle Calvin led forward a saddled horse and 
pointed to Margaret and Daisy-dear waiting 
at what the latter considered a respectful dis- 
tance from that snorting iron horse. 

A glorious, wholesome queen of the woods, 
Margaret looked, sitting her restless pony so 
easily under the flaming crimson and yellow 
sweet-gum trees ; and his instant, ardent search 
of her glowing brown eyes confirmed all 
his hopes. But one of those coquettes, Mar- 
garet or Daisy-dear, led him a merry chase 
through miles of gorgeous autumn forest 
before he obtained the consent of (and from) 
the lips of his lady-love. 

At that moment — for even first kisses are 
momentary on horseback — at that auspicious 
moment Uncle Calvin rounded a curve in the 
road on his mule. 

“Whoa!” he exclaimed softly, bending over 
the pommel in silent laughter ; “now ain’t Miss 
Mag — ain’t my little mistis cute?” he de- 
manded of the mule, though he was no Balaam 
that he should ask his long-eared carrier to 


The Peanut Prince 


69 


read Margaret’s character. ^^Ain’t she cute? 
She told me ter keep ’way behin’, so her beau 
wouldn’t see you, yer ole bag-er-bones. 
Humph! I reckon she knowed dar’d be 
sumpin’ she didn’t want me ter see too I Den 
she said fur me ter cut er cross de pasture an' 
leave you out er sight an’ hurry ’round ter de 
front porch ter take dey bosses — ^tryin’ ter 
make er whole retinue er sarvants outen one 
ole lame nigger. I’ll be er settin’ up fur er 
prophet terreckly; I tole her dis time las’ yeah 
she wuz er gwine ter fall in love wid er man in 
Ferginny, an’ now, bless Pat, she done done it! 
An’ him de Peanut Prince at dat! Well, dar 
won’t be no trouble ’bout ’sposing er dis yeah’s 
crap er peanuts !” 









A PINK CRAVAT 


“Who on earth can that be asked a girl of 
her companions chatting on the lawn under a 
spreading oak. 

Her curiosity was pardonable, for a perfect 
stranger was as rare as a bird of paradise in 
that drowsy little community where everybody 
and everybody's relatives unto the third and 
fourth degree were familiar to everybody else, 
and where it was useless for any girl to try to 
put back her age, no matter how lacking she 
might be in either books or beaux. 

The stranger, a slight man of medium 
height, dressed in black, had just alighted 
from the stage which had brought him to this 
little village so far from the clanging railroad ; 
he was wending his way down the straggling 
street, valise and umbrella in hand, when spied 
by the group of laughing, inquisitive girls. 


72 


A Pink Cravat 


‘Who can he be?” persisted Kate. 

“Why, don’t you know ?” teased Olga. He’s 
my sweetheart, a fairy prince in disguise, and 
he is coming here to ask Father’s con — ” 

The jest died on her lips as the stranger 
opened the gate and came hesitatingly up the 
broad, gravelled walk. Amid the suppressed 
mirth of the girls, Olga rose, in her capacity 
of hostess, and went to meet him. 

“Is Major Brandon at home? If so, I would 
like to speak to him,” he said, as coolly as he 
could, facing such a battery of bright, curious 
eyes. This harmless statement, following so 
quickly on Olga’s casual pleasantry, caused a 
fresh titter from the girls and a bright pink 
to overspread the little hostess’s face. 

“Father is at the post-office, but” — not all 
the giggling girls in Christendom could make 
her break the good old Southern rule — “won’t 
you come in to see Mother and have a glass of 
fresh water?” 

“No, I thank you ; I must see Major Brandon 
at once, as my business is urgent.” And the 
stranger beat a dignified retreat, while the 
urgency of his business with Olga’s father 
caused more smothered laughter from the 
girls, who were just at that age when fun 
bubbles up spontaneously. 


A Pink Cravat 


73 


As soon as he had disappeared behind the 
high mock-orange hedge, Olga’s temporary 
dignity vanished and she joined heartily in the 
laugh at her own expense. 

‘‘Fairy prince in disguise,” mocked Lulu. 
“I bet he’s the new teacher, though he wasn’t 
expected until next week.” 

“In that case, he might as well have left his 
valise, for the teachers always stay here be- 
cause we’re so near the school,” said Olga. 

“How tiresome it must be for you, having 
to put up with the teacher out of school as 
well as in session,” commented Kate. 

“Well, you know I stay over with Grand- 
mother most of the time, and this man looks 
kind and quiet, anyway,” answered Olga. 

“He’s the very kind to put you on your 
honor and work you to death before you rea- 
lize it,” persisted Kate. 

“Oh, girls, suppose he should fall in love 
with Annie,” suggested Olga, with all the en- 
thusiasm of a school girl for her older sister 
who is a real, “sure enough” young lady. 

Meantime, Major Brandon and Mr. How- 
ard, the new teacher, had settled all business 
matters, and then, after the manner of the time 
and place, hunted for mutual acquaintances or 
distant relatives. Their search failed to reveal 


74 


A Pink Cravat 


any tie nearer than the fact that Major Bran- 
don lost his arm in the same battle that cost 
Mr. Howard’s father his life. But this was 
a bond as binding as blood, so it was with the 
air of bringing home a life-long friend that 
Major Brandon introduced Mr. Howard to his 
wife and daughter Annie who were sitting on 
the porch in the twilight. The Major also 
mentioned with pride the two sons who were 
trying their fortunes in the West. 

“And there’s Olga, whom you saw this af- 
ternoon and will have in your classes. She 
stays most of the time with her grandmother, 
who lives alone in that large house across the 
way.” 

After supper, at which Mr. Howard did fair 
justice to Aunt Dicey’s beaten biscuit, fried 
chicken, and peach preserves, he excused him- 
self to write to his mother. He expatiated to 
her on the congenial family into which he had 
been received, the excellent fare, his comfort- 
able room, for these come to a country teacher 
seldom enough to arouse appreciation; but he 
concealed his bitter disappointment at the small 
school and smaller salary, for was she not suf- 
ficiently harassed already? His mother and 
sister, accustomed to every comfort, timid and 
incapable of battling for themselves, were now 


A Pink Cravat 


75 


entirely dependent on Mr. Howard. The old 
home of ante-bellum grandeur was left, but 
none of the broad acres that originally sur- 
rounded and supplied it. And he, oh! he felt 
himself so ill-fitted to cope with the new order 
of things. The place in life he was intended 
to fill, the easy-going master of a rich planta- 
tion, was swept away and he seemed incompe- 
tent to carve out one of equal scope for himself ; 
it was not lack of will or energy, but want of 
adaptability. 

So the most of Mr. Howard’s slender salary 
was sent back to the old home and very little 
was left for his own use. Of course, life in 
that somnolent village called for little cash, but 
clothes have a provoking habit of wearing out 
even in the country; and so, though scrupu- 
lously neat, the teacher’s clothes were eventu- 
ally shiny and threadbare. 

The pleasant home where he spent his leisure 
was a great solace to him, also the cultivated 
class of children he taught. Of all the schol- 
ars, however, he was most drawn to Olga, 
though she was not the prettiest nor even the 
most intellectual. She was still quite a child 
in years and manners, despite her tall figure 
and stately walk ; and her heavy plait of brown, 
glossy hair had not been twisted into any of 


76 


A Pink Cravat 


those compromise fashions by which young 
girls usually indicate their dawning desire for 
beaux. This thick, lustrous hair framed a 
pure, pale face, usually serious, but occasion- 
ally breaking into a mischievous smile as fasci- 
nating as it was rare. Olga’s liking for Mr. 
Howard was open and sincere and she per- 
sisted in thinking he would make an admirable 
brother-in-law. This idea certainly received 
scant encouragement, though Annie Brandon 
and Mr. Howard, being good friends and 
under the same roof, frequently went together 
to such social affairs as Arlington presented. 

Annie Brandon’s affections were centered in 
a childhood lover who was slowly establishing 
himself as a dentist in the nearest city, but until 
the affair approached a crisis she did not care to 
confide in Olga, who would in turn confide it 
to her clique of school-mates. 

And Mr. Howard’s affections — ^but a man 
who earns but fifty dollars a month and has 
three to support has no right to new affections, 
he sternly told himself time and again. 

This secret sternness naturally availed little 
against the unconscious witchery of a school- 
girl, whose innocent gray eyes detecting some- 
thing wrong, lingered to walk home with 
him, asking after his mother and casting sym- 


A Pink Cravat 


77 


pathetic glances from under a white sunbonnet, 
whose aggravating little ruffles neither revealed 
those clear eyes nor altogether concealed them. 

He saw very little of Olga out of school, as 
she lived with her grandmother. Of course 
he should have been thankful his temptations 
were thus lessened, but some men deliberately 
court temptation — to test their strength pos- 
sibly. 

For instance, Mr. Howard would rather 
wait all the afternoon on the Brandon porch 
in the small hope that Olga would run over, 
than to join the gay fishing parties that were 
formed during the long bright spring after- 
noons. He might catch only tantalizing 
glimpses of her among the somber cedars in 
the yard opposite, driving the gorgeous pea- 
cocks away from the flowers, or else swinging 
to and fro in the hammock with a chum on 
either side and a box of chocolates in her lap. 

Sometimes, however, his patience would be 
rewarded. Olga would come over to see her 
mother, and when that busy matron began her 
nightly inspection of household machinery, 
Olga would come out on the porch and join 
Mr. Howard as he sat in the gloaming, still 
holding the book which served as a pretext. 
Touched by his loneliness she would tell him 


78 


A Pink Cravat 


of her whims and ideals with a freedom and 
lack of self-consciousness that was charming, 
if not flattering; or when her magnetic pres- 
ence loosened the eloquence of this man, so 
silent and reserved with others, she would lis- 
ten intently, all the while plaiting and unplait- 
ing the fluffy ends of her heavy brown braid. 

Once she listened thus spell-bound until 
dark, and rising hastily she flung back this 
wealth of wavy hair ; it brushed Mr. Howard's 
face, and snatching one furtive kiss he rose 
and followed her, seeming to be drawn by each 
and every silken strand. 

All unconsciously Olga assured him she was 
not afraid to go that short distance alone; for 
once he cast prudence to the winds and walked 
beside her to her grandmother’s door, his 
hands locked tightly behind him. She vaguely 
felt a difference in him that stopped her usual 
chatter, and so in silence they passed the boun- 
dary he had hitherto set himself, and in silence 
they parted. 

All that night Mr. Howard sat by his 
window and tried to listen to the voice of 
conscience and prudence rather than to the 
maddening mocking-bird that poured out his 
love-song to his mate on the nest in the ram- 
bling rosebush in the moonlit garden below; 


A Pink Cravat 


79 


tried to remember his dependent mother rather 
than the soft allurement of Olga’s hair against 
his face. He knew that in his present circum- 
stances marriage was impossible. That after- 
noon had proven how fast he was losing 
self-control, therefore the sooner he left Ar- 
lington the better for himself and possibly for 
Olga; for what right had he to disturb her 
girlish serenity, possibly to exact a promise he 
might be years in fulfilling ? 

The gray dawn found duty and discretion in 
command, but they were nearly routed by a 
little wisp of brown hair Mr. Howard found 
tangled around a button when he brushed his 
coat for breakfast. It had caught there when 
she flung back her braid so carelessly the night 
before, and now caused a renewal of hostilities 
between his duty and his desire. But quiet 
people are usually firm, and with the same 
expression that one lays away a lock from the 
dead, Mr. Howard put this strand in an envel- 
ope and then in his Bible. 

At breakfast he told Major Brandon, as 
president of the school trustees, to select 
another teacher for the next term ; pleasant as 
were his surroundings he would be compelled 
to seek a larger and more lucrative field. 


80 


A Pink Cravat 


Pursuing this resolve, Mr. Howard drove up 
to the nearest city the next Saturday, hoping 
there to make some arrangement for the ensu- 
ing year. Mrs. Brandon thought this a good 
opportunity to visit on his room that annual 
infliction known as a ‘‘general spring clean- 
ing.’’ Lize, the house-girl, having swept, 
dusted, and scrubbed all day, came down in 
the afternoon and announced : 

“I bet Mr. Howard sleeps widout rockin’ 
ternight, ’tween his long ride an’ dat nice fraish 
bed what’s been sunned all day. I suttinly is 
sorry he’s gwine erway, ’ca’se he’s so pleasant- 
spoken an’ easy ter suit. Now, Miss Annie, 
you go up dar an’ see ef dat room ain’t all 
right.” 

So Annie Brandon picked up a few roses and 
some honeysuckle she had just gathered and 
started up to please Lize, who always expected 
praise. Olga came over just in time to see her 
sister disappearing up the stairs and ran laugh- 
ing after her. 

“Oh, yes, miss, you have driven him away 
by your indifference and now you are taking 
flowers to his room to show you’re sorry,” 
teased Olga, who still longed for Mr. Howard 
as a brother-in-law. 


A Pink Cravat 


81 


‘‘How can you keep up that nonsense, especi- 
ally when you're — " But Annie paused before 
Olga's unconscious eyes, then led the way into 
Mr. Howard's room. 

“Especially when it's true," persisted Olga. 

“It isn't." 

“I'll choke that tarradiddle with your sweet- 
heart's tie," cried Olga, seizing the worn black 
silk cravat that hung, bachelor fashion, over the 
mirror. She threw it around Annie's neck and 
gave it a vigorous pull. Alas! too vigorous, 
for the ill-used tie gave up its threadbare exist- 
ence with a faint snap. 

“There now! see what you've done," ex- 
claimed Annie. “And you know he hasn't one 
to spare, poor fellow." 

But her lecture was cut short by the sound 
of wheels at the gate, and peering through the 
green shutters they saw that Mr. Howard had 
returned from his trip tO' the city. The tres- 
passers scampered down stairs, Olga still hold- 
ing the tell-tale pieces of cravat in her hand. 

She was making straight for her grand- 
mother's, but Annie called her back, thinking it 
easier to explain the disappearance of the tie 
then and there. So Mr. Howard, tired and 
dispirited now that he was committed to flight, 
was astonished to find standing penitently be- 


82 


A Pink Cravat 


fore him the girl he loved, his old neck-tie 
in her hand and on her face a comical expres- 
sion caused by the real regret she felt for an 
offense apparently so trivial. 

Annie blundered through a lame account of 
how they happened to visit his room and Olga 
just er — accidentally broke the cravat. Mr. 
Howard, gazing hungrily at Olga, was not 
conscious she had finished until he noticed 
their surprise at his silence. Then he pro- 
nounced judgment on the culprit : 

“There is only one way you can replace it, 
Olga. You must make me another with your 
own fingers, and make it out of some cloth like 
that pink dress you wore last — ^you frequently 
wear,” and he caught himself just in time. 

“What, a pink cravat! Who ever heard of 
a pink lawn cravat? Imagine yourself!” ex- 
claimed Annie and Olga in chorus, and then 
went off into peals of merriment at the incon- 
gruous idea. 

Mr. Howard joined heartily in the laugh, 
but repeated stubbornly : 

“Well, I want it anyhow. I didn’t say Td 
wear it,” he conscientiously added under his 
breath. 

Olga escaped under cover of the general 
laugh and, catching Annie’s eye unobserved. 


A Pink Cravat 


83 


gave a saucy little flip with the remnants of that 
much used and abused necktie. She found 
things dull at her grandmother’s, so in pure 
idleness she hunted a scrap of her pink dress 
and the work-box she had received as a Christ- 
mas present and displayed solely as an orna- 
ment. Taking these to her grandmother, who 
sat placidly knitting on the back porch where 
she could watch the milking, and the chickens 
going to roost, Olga expressed her intention of 
making a gentleman’s cravat. 

‘‘A what? Out of pink lawn?” queried the 
old lady; then, lest she discourage dawning 
industry and economy, she added hastily, “Oh, 
yes, certainly; that’s very simple. Just cut it 
on the bias, about three inches wide, and fold 
it over so, and hem the ends.” 

Olga labored awkwardly but with patience, 
and when dusk fell the anomaly was finished. 
Leaving her grandmother knitting steadily, by 
faith and not by sight, she stole over to her 
father’s house, slipped up to Mr. Howard’s 
room while supper was being served, and hung 
her handiwork over his mirror with mischiev- 
ous delight. 

She would have been astonished could she 
have seen the reception of her joke. Mr. How- 
ard rained kisses on that poor little strip of 


84 


A Pink Cravat 


pink lawn, then folded it tenderly and placed 
it in his Bible beside that wisp of brown hair. 

The teacher had himself and his emotions 
well in hand now, and when school was closed 
he took leave of Arlington, the Brandons, and 
Olga without once breaking the restraint he 
had placed on himself ; perhaps that Bible con- 
tained the source of his strength as well as the 
tokens of his weakness. Annie was the only 
one who had a vague suspicion of his agony 
at leaving and the cause thereof, but she natur- 
ally said nothing. 

Mr. Howard promised to let Annie know 
where he would teach the following session, 
and she in turn would write him all the Arling- 
ton news. 

It was not until the next fall, however, that 
she received a letter from him, such a cheerful, 
breezy letter, saying that he had charge of a 
large school in Louisiana and was prospering 
beyond his fondest expectations. A year or so 
in such a congenial, lucrative place would 
enable him to — er — to look at life through rose- 
colored spectacles, to face it as a man and not 
as a machine for teaching the young idea how 
to shoot. He inquired about Olga, whether she 
was going to school this year, and if the new 
teacher was a man or a woman ? 


A Pink Cravat 


85 


Annie replied immediately and satisfactorily. 
Olga was not going to school, but was very 
fond of the teacher, who was a charming girl 
and boarded with them as usual. Olga was 
very much interested in a reading circle formed 
by the teacher, and was also proving quite a 
little housekeeper for her grandmother, who 
was getting very feeble. 

After that letters flew thick and fast, and 
good-natured Annie Brandon received and an- 
swered letters which were nine-tenths Olga. 
At first that young person remarked frankly : 

“He'd just as well write to me and be done 
with it." But Annie’s undisguised joy at such 
an arrangement rather surprised Olga, who 
ever afterward listened to those charming, 
round-about letters from Louisiana in evasive 
silence. Her girlish, friendly messages to Mr. 
Howard stopped, and poor Annie was in a 
quandary, unwilling to invent expressions of 
a feeling she vaguely surmised, yet sorry to 
disappoint her correspondent. She was trying 
to devise some method of escape from this 
three-cornered arrangement when a long gap 
occurred during which no answer came from 
Louisiana. 

Finally one dreary day in the late autumn 
a letter came with the familiar postmark, but 


86 


A Pink Cravat 


addressed in strange writing and punctured 
through and through in many places with cur- 
ious little holes. 

While Annie was turning this peculiar-look- 
ing epistle over in vague alarm, Olga came 
dashing in, having run across from her grand- 
mother’s in the rain without an umbrella. Her 
pale face was flushed with the exercise, antici- 
pation shone through her eyes, and tiny drops 
of rain sparkled in her heavy brown hair. 

letter? — from Mr. Howard?” she asked 
at once. 

‘‘Yes, no — I don’t know yet,” stammered 
Annie, showing her the expected postmark but 
the strange writing. 

“What’s the matter with it, those little 
holes?” 

“Fumigation,” answered Annie concisely, 
apprehensively. 

She broke the envelope at last with a shud- 
der; a pink lawn cravat and a tiny tangle of 
brown hair were enfolded in a note. 

^^Miss Annie Brandon. 

“Dear Miss : Mr. Howard had been with us 
such a short time and was so reticent, that we 
are at a loss how to communicate with his 
mother, not remembering her address. Your 


A Pink Cravat 


87 


name and residence being familiar to me 
through his allusions to last year’s events, I 
take the liberty of asking you to inform his 
mother of his death. 

“As you probably know, our section has been 
visited by that dread scourge yellow fever. 

“Mr. Howard was one of the last to be at- 
tacked, but being much reduced by faithful 
nursing of others, he failed to rally. I will not 
attempt to picture the grief of this community 
at the death of one whose stay with us, though 
brief, was ample to arouse our admiration for 
his manly tenderness, his unselfish devotion to 
duty. 

“Of course all of his effects had to be burned, 
but I saved some little mementos found in his 
Bible, which can be thoroughly fumigated; 
doubtless you will know by whom they will be 
most valued. Any further details of this sad 
event will be furnished willingly. 

“Yours respectfully, 

“John M. Hayes.” 

While Annie was reading this letter aloud, 
brokenly, blinded by tears, Olga sobbed over 
the pitiful little souvenirs. 

“I gave him this as a joke,” she said, hand- 
ing Annie the pink cravat, “but I can’t imagine 


88 


A Pink Cravat 


whose hair this is,” giving her the little wisp 
of hair which now glistened with a tear even 
as Olga’s heavy tresses sparkled with rain- 
drops. 

Annie did not answer at once, but when Olga 
turned to gaze disconsolately out of the win- 
dow at the desolate downpour, she surrepti- 
tiously compared the little souvenir with the 
fluffy end of the heavy brown braid that hung 
down her sister’s back. ‘‘I don’t know where he 
got it,” she agreed evasively, confirmed in her 
conjecture and divided between joy and regret 
at Olga’s unconsciousness, “but you keep them 
both. I will write to his mother.” 


‘THE TOP O’ THE MORNING’ 


“Speaking of the capital, we will soon land 
at the old capital of Alabama, Cahaba, and a 
curious, deserted place it is now, with palatial 
houses gone to decay and the streets plowed 
into cotton and corn fields,” said the captain of 
the Mamie King to his passenger. 

Gilbert Grayson, this lone, lorn passenger, 
had been attracted, while sitting in the hotel 
lobby at Montgomery the day previous, by a 
long, melodious whistle which he was told 
announced the arrival of the river packet 
Mamie King on her weekly trip from Mobile. 
In the group was a planter, who immediately 
became eloquent over the pleasures of “a jour- 
ney down the majestic Alabama River as it 
wends its way from capital to seaport, especi- 
ally during the spring, when the willows trail 
tender green arms in the brown water, as 
though taking its temperature in order to advise 
more delicate plants when to trust themselves 


90 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 


above Mother Earth’s warm bosom; already 
the dogwood and wild honeysuckle deck the 
banks, and the dark, glossy magnolias are 
heavy with creamy buds which will burst with 
incense on June’s arrival ; while, to descend to 
material matters, sir, the cooking is toothsome 
and the captain a trump !” 

“That’s all well enough for a man who’s 
got time to throw away,” said a drummer, 
hustling away to catch his train. 

Time to throw away, that exactly described 
Gilbert Grayson’s desultory condition, so he 
immediately went down to the wharf and took 
passage on the Mamie King for her return trip 
to Mobile which began that afternoon. 

This young Yankee had rushed through life 
for twenty-seven years, especially the last ten, 
leaving the strain for collegiate honors only to 
strive more ardently for recognition in journal- 
ism. His ambition and his fortune were bound 
up in a leading magazine, but now the doctors 
had ordered a halt, a complete rest, and his 
common sense seconded their advice. So he 
had decided to idle through the South, to 
find out the variety of his own country before 
studying foreign lands, thus reversing the 
usual plan of sightseers. 


‘The Top O* The Morning*’ 


91 


Mr. Grayson had intended to note the indus- 
trial progress of the New South, to study the 
race question, thus gathering material for a 
series of articles in his magazine “when Richard 
was himself again”. But in Montgomery he had 
gazed longer upon that golden star set in 
the Capitol steps to mark the place where Jef- 
ferson Davis stood when he took the oath as 
President of the Confederacy, than he had 
studied the cotton factories ; he had taken more 
interest in the crumbling colonial mansions 
standing amidst unkempt lawns veiled in gray 
moss than he did in modern architectural evi- 
dences of returning prosperity. 

He grew more puzzled and interested in the 
race problem viewed at close range, and found 
that, like many other subjects, it presented diffi- 
culties in the practical application of theories 
which in themselves were indisputable. In the 
business relations of every-day life the two 
races here, in the black belt, were on a familiar 
footing, yet both recognized just where was 
fixed that impassable gulf which swallows up 
one of either race who makes a move toward 
social equality. 

Aside from this creepy sensation of an invisi- 
ble but ever-present dead-line, Gilbert Grayson 
had enjoyed his stay in north Alabama very 


92 


“The Top O* The Morning’* 


much. He had been charmed with the soft 
approach of spring, with the fair and gracious* 
women, who all seemed to know each other 
and to be glad of it. The men in the hotels 
had been friendly and courteous, but where was 
that far-famed, much-lauded Southern hospi- 
tality? True, he had neglected to bring letters 
of introduction and he hardly expected the resi- 
dents of a town, even in the South, to scan 
the hotel registers for strangers upon whom to 
exercise their hospitable instincts or to stop an 
unknown man and ask him to dinner ; still, he 
was vaguely disappointed that some little inci- 
dent — one of those unexpected rencounters of 
travel — had not brought him into personal con- 
tact with these people whose manners toward 
each other were so easy and charming. 

He had hoped to find a large party on the 
boat, and he knew the informality of that tedi- 
ous and antiquated mode of travel would soon 
make all the passengers acquainted ; but he was 
sorely disappointed, for with the exception of a 
few country boys going from one landing to an- 
other, he was the sole traveler on the Mamie 
King. The captain took this, together with life 
in general, complacently, only regretting that 
now, while the river was most beautiful, there 
were always fewer passengers than at any sea- 
son of the year. 


'The Top O* The Morning’ 


93 


^‘You see, it’s this way,” he explained, ^hhe 
rush to Mobile for the Mardi Gras gaiety is 
over and the city folks that go up to spend 
every summer with their dear country cousins 
haven’t started yet. But, sir,” continued Cap- 
tain King, ^'you just ought to see this old boat 
about the last of June. She’s fairly abloom 
with pretty girls fresh from college, and young 
men who can’t wait until the charmers reach 
home ; the old boat goes too fast for the couples 
that dot her decks those moonlight nights. 
Then in the fall, when the cotton has been 
sold for a good price, the planters sit up in 
the bow and smoke and talk politics, while 
their wives congregate in the cabin and discuss 
shopping and prospective weddings. That’s 
the time you could learn something of our best 
river families.” 

Thus had the Captain talked far into the 
night after they left Montgomery, and Gilbert 
had listened and waited for the strange scenes 
disclosed when the boat stopped and threw her 
searchlight on the muddy landings; for if pas- 
sengers were few, freight was plentiful and 
the long lines of roustabouts left an abundant 
supply of provisions and farming implements 
on either side of this broad river which flows 
through one of the richest cotton belts in the 


94 “The Top O* The Morning” 

world. Even after he went to bed, the songs 
of the deck-hands — weird incentives to labor, — 
and the throbbing of the engine combined to 
give a foreign flavor to his dreams. 

Mr. Grayson arose early the next morning, 
but in time only to catch a parting glimpse 
of Selma, ungratefully turning her back upon 
the tawny river, which is her best friend, 
almost her raison d'etre. After breakfast — 
such a breakfast as only a Creole cook can con- 
coct — the Captain placed chairs upon the shady 
side of the boat and resumed his efforts to 
entertain this handsome, intelligent stranger, 
giving him the history of every stately home 
that stood near the river’s bank to catch its 
cooling breezes. 

More than once Captain King had begun to 
tell how some place had been destroyed during 

the war by the d Yank — , and then stopped 

short, much to the amusement of the particular 
Yankee present. So now, when they were 
approaching Cahaba, the narrator felt re- 
lieved that he could unfold a tale of 
past importance and present desolation with- 
out laying the cause at the door of the Yan- 
kees. He told of the Indian village found there 
by De Soto; of the settlement during pioneer 
days; of the little city’s aristocratic elegance 


95 


‘‘The Top O’ The Morning” 

when capital of Alabama; of the visit of La 
Fayette, when the boat bearing the distin- 
guished guest whistled four times before turn- 
ing the last bend, so the expectant host’s cook 
would know just when to commence frying 
chickens for the great Frenchman’s delectation. 

Gilbert could hardly believe that a man who 
had played such a prominent part in the Ameri- 
can Revolution and the French Reign of Ter- 
ror had found time or inclination to visit these 
slumberous solitudes. The home in which the 
nobleman was entertained so lavishly now 
stands desolate, inhabited by negro field-hands 
who cook their bacon and hoe-cake in fire- 
places whose white marble mantels tower to the 
frescoed ceilings. 

“The whole place is now owned by a young 
fellow who is farming on such a large scale 
that he is commonly known as the Duke of 
Cahaba,” concluded Captain King. 

“Why did they move the capital and why 
should that have annihilated the town?” in- 
quired Mr. Grayson. 

“Because the high water covers the place 
every few years,” explained the Captain briefly 
as he hurried below to superintend the landing. 
He soon returned to tell Gilbert that they had 


96 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 


seven hundred sacks of fertilizer to put off, so 
if he desired, he might explore the place until 
the whistle blew. 

Gilbert was soon roaming this ‘^deserted vil- 
lage” and inspecting elegant houses, once the 
scene of many a tilt of love, war and politics, 
but now standing wide open in their desola- 
tion; a dingy stain half way up their walls 
marked the height of the floods which had 
swept away people and prestige. Many houses 
had been torn down and the brick used to build 
up the little city of Selma, which had profited 
by Cahaba’s experience and perched high and 
dry upon a bluff several miles up stream. 

Not a white family remained in Cahaba, 
and even the darkies were at work in distant 
fields. The dreamy, hazy languor of an early 
spring morning was unbroken save by the busy, 
nesting birds, for though numerous pickanin- 
nies swarmed at each door they were dumb with 
amazement at sight of a stranger. When Gilbert 
tried to learn from them in which house General 
LaFayette had been entertained they answered, 
“I dunno, sah,” and had he only realized it, 
his quick, crisp accent was as strange to them as 
the language of the Frenchman would have 
been. O for the Captain, genial, voluble Cap- 
tain King! 


‘‘The Top O’ The Morning” 


97 


Somewhat appalled by such material decay 
and mental density, Gilbert turned down a new 
path a few paces, then paused, transfixed — 
under a dogwood tree in full bloom stood a 
stylish trap decorated with wild azaleas, while 
the trim little ponies tossed their heads in pro- 
test at the huge bouquets of pink blossoms 
stuck in their bridles. 

Seated in the trap, with her back to Mr. 
Grayson, was Flora up-to-date — a young girl 
in white linen, to which, proving rather cool, 
she had added a boa of fragrant pink flowers, 
while a huge bunch in her lap served as a muff. 
Her broad-brimmed hat, weighted with azal- 
eas, lay on the seat beside her, letting the sun 
riot unchecked amid the glinting tendrils of her 
brown hair; an incarnation of spring and a 
delicious contrast to the surrounding deso- 
lation ! 

Hearing steps, she asked without turning 
around : 

“How do you think this would do for the 
Flower Parade?” 

Gilbert was mustering up courage to say it 
couldn’t be improved on, when she looked 
back. 

“Oh ! I thought you were Will ! Where — ?” 
And then she stopped, her face as pink as her 


98 “The Top O’ The Morning” 

flowers and her hazel eyes dancing with sup- 
pressed curiosity. 

“From the boat just now, from Boston ori- 
ginally,” he replied; “and may I repeat the 
question?” 

“I drove my brother down to his plantation 
this morning, as his horse is lame. And here 
he is,” she added with evident relief, as a young 
man stepped from a by-path. His amazement 
at this sylvan tete-a-tete brought forth expla- 
nations, also Mr. Grayson’s card. 

In return he said : 

“I am William Davenport, of Selma, and 
this is my sister Miss Grace Davenport. I see 
you have been experimenting for the Flower 
Parade,” he added. “This, you must know, 
is the latest scheme these fair extortioners have 
devised to make money for the church,” he 
explained to Gilbert. 

“A prettier one could not be found,” he an- 
swered, with evident sincerity. “And when 
and where does this fete take place?” 

“In Selma, just a week from to-day.” And 
while Grace was giving details, Gilbert was 
calculating whether that tortoise-boat would 
reach Mobile in time for him to enjoy that 
quaint city and return to Selma by rail in a 
week. 


‘The Top O’ The Morning” 


99 


Meanwhile, Will had discovered from some 
pin that Gilbert was a Harvard man, and as 
he himself was a son of old Eli, the respective 
merits of their universities were soon under 
discussion. 

Mr. Grayson was telling of his idle wander- 
ings through Dixie Land, when the warning 
whistle of the boat called forth hurried adieux. 

“Just wait a minute,” said Will as he stepped 
into the trap and opened the back seat. “I am 
sure Grace will be glad of an excuse to drive 
to the landing and renew her flirtation with old 
Captain King.” 

Grace made a saucy little grimace at her 
brother, gathered up the lines, the ponies 
dashed off, and for a few delicious moments 
Gilbert could feast his eyes on the dainty ani- 
mated figure in front and drink in the intoxi- 
cating perfume of her floral boa. Gilbert felt 
as though flying through Fairyland. A week 
ago he had left his office in the noisy, clamor- 
ous city, snow and slush under foot, icy winds 
shrieking around the tall, smoky buildings, and 
men and women swarming through the 
streets in a rush of toil and unrest. Yet here 
spring had already woven her spell over buds, 
blossoms, and building birds, a lazy, hazy quiet 
prevailed, and people took time to enjoy them- 

L. 'J-f 0. 


100 


“The Top O' The Morning” 


selves even while working. Will Davenport 
was a practical planter, the Duke of Cahaba, 
but when a lame saddle-horse prevented him 
from riding out at dawn as usual, he accom- 
plished the same work, yet took time to tease 
and pet his sister. 

And Grace, who seemed so delicate and 
dainty, held in her ponies, that were trying to 
outrun their ticklish head-dress, with a muscle 
and courage which aroused fresh admiration in 
Gilbert Grayson, who had a city man's whole- 
some respect for horses. Soon, all too soon, 
she drew them up skilfully at the landing, and 
said triumphantly if somewhat breathlessly : 

“I always told you they couldn’t get away 
from me. Will!” a subject upon which it 
seemed her brother had been somewhat uneasy. 

So Captain King and even the deck-hands 
were refreshed by a glimpse of fair Grace Dav- 
enport and her flower-bedecked equipage. 

The men alighted, and while Will relieved 
the ponies and trap of their decorations, Gilbert 
talked with Grace — about what he could never 
recall. As he stood looking straight up into 
her glorious eyes, he perceived a latent pathos 
that completed the charm of her captivating 
inconsistencies; a true daughter of the South, 


“The Top O* The Morning” 


101 


she, with sorrow and sympathy for Old Times 
and old people; with joy and jest for to-day 
and the people thereof. 

Grace gave him a smiling bow at parting, 
instead of the little gauntletted hand he wished, 
and somehow he felt rebuked for reading un- 
bidden the secret sweetness of her eyes. But 
Will shook hands and cordially said: 

“If you ever happen to come to Selma, let 
me know without fail.” 

In spite of Gilbert Grayson’s casual reply, 
Selma was already one of the objective points 
of the universe to him. 

The deck-hands raised a plaintive chant, the 
Mamie King shrieked and churned the water, 
whereat Grace’s ponies dashed off unceremoni- 
ously, and Gilbert sat upon the deck and 
watched that wretched, desolate Cahaba dis- 
appear as though leaving the land of enchant- 
ment ; what a place in which to find his dream- 
maiden — ^but suppose he had not left the boat ! 

Captain King had now found a new theme, 
one to his liking and to his listener’s taste. 
The Davenport history past and present was 
soon familiar to Gilbert; their power before 
the war, their hard struggle afterwards. The 
only son who survived returned shattered in 
body and spirit. Things went from bad to 


102 “The Top O* The Morning” 

worse during his life, and when his wife died 
he gave up the endless effort at adjustment to 
the new order of things and followed her to 
the grave. 

Thus Will and Grace were early left to the 
care of their grandmother, or Madame Daven- 
port as she was generally called, though there 
was not a trace of French blood in the family. 
After his father’s death Will began work with 
vim and courage, and soon had the family for- 
tunes in better shape ; then went to Yale, gradu- 
ated, and returned to manage the Davenport 
plantations successfully. 

And Miss Grace? The old Captain paused 
to find words suitable to express his admiration 
for her devotion to her grandmother, her com- 
radery with her brother, her housewifely care 
for Dunleith, their handsome old home. Two 
years at college in Baltimore had removed some 
of her prejudices, and broadened her interests, 
but had not robbed her of the innocent coquetry 
that was hers from childhood. Beaux? Oh, 
yes, beaux by the dozen, but she treated them 
all alike, just as she treated Will. In fact, the 
Captain had begun to fear she might have 
fallen in love with some Yank — with some 
fellow she met while at college. 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 103 

The river had narrowed between high bluffs, 
and about many points Captain King told tales 
of Indians and of French and Spanish pioneers. 
Here De Soto fought the brave Chief Tusca- 
loosa, there the half-breed Chief Weatherford 
leapt his iron-gray horse over the cliff rather 
than be captured by his pursuers; here Sam 
Dale beat back the red devils who swam after 
his canoe; there (as where not?) was Lover’s 
Leap, whence the Indian brave and his beloved 
maiden, from a hostile tribe, sought death 
rather than separation. And Gilbert Grayson, 
that practical young Yankee, positively thrilled 
to see that Lover’s Leap was abloom with 
pink azaleas ! 

On the second day the Mamie King ceased 
her tedious zigzag from one landing to another, 
and like a horse seeking his stall she pushed 
her way swiftly among the lumber rafts, banana 
boats, cotton ‘Vhalebacks” and other strange 
craft crowding Alabama’s only seaport, into her 
own pier. Captain King bade Gilbert a hearty 
but hasty farewell, for his family lived in 
Mobile and he made the most of his weekly 
“visit.” 

Mr. Grayson established himself at the Battle 
House, and set conscientiously — for he was 
Puritan-bred — to study Mobile, that fascinat- 
ing old Gulf city, rich in crumbling evidences 


104 


‘The Top The Morning” 


of French and Spanish occupation and pictur- 
esque with the resultant race-mixture. Ordi- 
narily Gilbert would have revelled in all this 
material for articles and sketches, but now 
when he drove down the famous Shell-road a 
phantom trap gay with azaleas seemed to dispel 
his effort to interweave fact and fancy, while 
from every porch came voices melodious with 
that low, slow, tramant quality he had found 
so fascinating in Grace Davenport. 

Needless to say, he arrived in Selma just in 
time for the Floral Parade, as was evident 
from the decorated carriages to be seen en route 
to the driving-park. Half an hour later Gilbert 
was on the grand-stand searching in vain amid 
a bewildering array of vehicles for one beauti- 
fied with azaleas ; it did not occur to him that 
Grace mig*ht exercise the feminine privilege 
of changing her mind, or that a recent storm 
had shattered the azaleas. 

An unusual round of applause greeted a 
beautiful carriage whose red and white roses 
suggested the colors of the Confederacy even 
without the flag of Stars and Bars that flut- 
tered from Grace Davenport’s hand. The band 
broke into Dixie, the crowd cheered wildly, 
but Gilbert Grayson’s heart sank, for what 
chance had he of winning favor with a girl 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 105 

so devoted to the Lost Cause; and so change- 
able, for he took her desertion of azalea deco- 
rations almost as a personal affront. 

He had about decided to leave Selma imme- 
diately, without making his presence known to 
the Davenports, when Will spied him. 

‘‘Well, you really did find your way to our 
little Flower Fete ! I am truly glad to see you,” 
Will said, with a hearty hand clasp. “And 
this is a good chance to introduce you to some 
charming girls.” 

Then Gilbert found himself piloted among 
gay traps filled with gayer girls; but the face 
he longed for faded these into one composite re- 
membrance of sparkling eyes, smiling lips, 
filmy laces and flowers, flowers everywhere. 

At last he ventured to put the question burn- 
ing his lips since Will’s advent. “Where is 
your sister ?” 

“Grace? she probably drove home with 
Grandmother,” Will replied, with brotherly 
nonchalance. “But you must come to the cotil- 
lion to-night and there you’ll find her in full 
swing.” 

Small consolation that, to Gilbert, who didn’t 
dance, but he went. The group surrounding 
Miss Davenport that night parted in surprise 
as Will brought Mr. Grayson up to renew their 
“passing acquaintance.” She seemed glad to 


106 “The Top O* The Morning” 

see him, gave him two dances — ^to sit out, and 
between times he noted that while she was ex- 
ceedingly popular she treated all alike ; but then 
her favorite might not be a dancing man, poor 
fellow, and there was that Yank — that man 
she might have met and loved at college, as 
Captain King had cruelly suggested. 

After a few desperate attempts to make Gil- 
bert have a good time. Will left him to his own 
devices, or rather device, for when not talking 
to Grace, he stood and stared at her, oblivious 
of the comment thus aroused. If the girls re- 
sented the open absorption of this handsome 
stranger, the men only shrugged and said ‘‘poor 
fellow,” for many of them could remember a 
period during which Grace Davenport had 
seemed the only desirable woman. 

Like most beautiful girls, Grace looked best 
in evening dress, and her pale pink organdy 
was eminently becoming; but in Gilbert Gray- 
son’s mind she would forever be associated 
with the cool fragrance of early morning in 
the quiet woods, surrounded by dew-drenched 
flowers and birds a-twitter. 

The days which followed brought this 
stranger a full taste of the Southern hospitality 
he had so recently mourned as a thing of the 
past ; for on the Davenport introduction Selma 
society received him with open arms into the 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 


107 


gaieties that follow Easter and precede the flight 
to cooler climes. He was astonished to And 
such ease and perfection in entertaining in so 
small a place, far from the social centers of the 
continent, so far in fact from the Hub. He 
appreciated most of all glimpses of the home-i 
life of Dunleith, the Davenport home, which 
monopolized a whole block on the outskirts of 
town. 

The house and grounds were beautifully kept 
since Will’s revival of the family fortunes, but 
the colonial ensemble was not marred by mod- 
ern improvements. The square white house 
with green blinds and massive columns made 
a grateful picture among the large elms and 
funereal cedars. During the battle of Selma 
a cannon-ball passed through one of those col- 
umns and for thirty odd years the scar had 
been a mute reminder of the horrors of civil 
war. But, strange to say, the clustering ivy 
that had been slowly climbing upward all that 
time, reached and covered the gaping wound 
during the year that found North and South 
again united against a common foe. 

The interior of Dunleith presented a mix- 
ture of colonial and modern furniture that 
would have driven a stickler for unity of period 
distracted, but which had a peculiar charm for 


108 “The Top O’ The Morning” 

those who realize that a true home ''just 
grows” and is not made to order. Madame 
Davenport was a grand dame of the ancient 
r%ime, intensely interesting to Gilbert as a 
character-study, but rather chilling when 
viewed as a possible referee in matrimonial 
matters. 

Captain King had given Gilbert an example 
of Madame’s animosity toward the Union and 
Yank — and — er — Northerners. In the spring 
of ’98, when the whole country was fired with 
patriotism by the sinking of the Maine, many 
Selma merchants raised the Stars and Stripes 
over their stores. Madame Davenport’s car- 
riage drew up in front of the millinery shop 
she had patronized for over thirty years, but 
the Union flag caught her eye and she sank 
back on the seat. Beckoning one of the clerks, 
she asked that her bill be made out, as she 
wished to close her account with a Confederate 
veteran who would fly that flag ; she had never 
passed under it and she never expected to ! 

Will and Grace deplored such outbreaks, 
but respected the prejudices of one who had 
witnessed scenes their young eyes had been 
spared. To their delight, Madame’s bitterness 
subsided as the Cuban war progressed, and the 
battles of San Juan and Santiago had no more 


'The Top O’ The Morning” 


109 


enthusiastic raconteur than she, though she 
gave Alabama’s wiry little General Wheeler 
all the cavalry honors and Alabama’s daring 
young hero Hobson all the naval glory. 

Gilbert Grayson lingered in Selma from 
day to day, from week to week, ostensibly as 
‘‘a chield amang ye takin’ notes” ; but the notes 
were really taken by a grinning little negro 
out to Dunleith and in them the author pictured 
the attractions of riding, golfing or tennis, as 
the case might be. 

Every one seemed to understand and accept 
Gilbert’s condition except the Davenports. 
Madame was courteous but oblivious; Grace 
seemed to consider him a pleasant but transi- 
tory acquaintance, remained obstinately blind 
to anything serious in the situation, accepted 
his explanation of gathering material for 
articles in good faith, and when the conversa- 
tion threatened to become serious, she always 
managed to give it a humorous turn. 

One evening on the tennis court she had 
seemed unusually elusive and on the defensive, 
so Gilbert after tea sulked alone in a corner 
of the hotel veranda, smoking in the moonlight, 
discouraged, desperate. Will came whistling 
along on his way home from the post-office. 
Gilbert called him, and without preface con- 


110 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 


fided his love for Grace and asked Will’s 
approval. fellow-feeling makes us won- 

drous kind,” and Will hoped during the com- 
ing autumn to transplant his Northern Rose 
to Alabama’s genial soil, had in fact walked 
down to the post-office just for a letter from 
her, and got it, too. 

So Will gave Gilbert his permission, though 
his face sobered at the possibility of losing his 
companionable sister ; as for Madame, he could 
only say that while theoretically she hated the 
Yankees, she had liked each one she had ever 
known personally, probably a half-dozen in all. 

With this meagre comfort Gilbert had to 
content himself that night; but he awoke early 
the next morning determined “to put it to the 
touch to win or lose it all.” As that was hardly 
feasible at six o’clock in the morning, he de- 
cided to take a long walk before breakfast. 
Of course he didn’t start in the direction of 
Dunleith, but in the course of an hour he found 
himself in a shady side lane skirting the east- 
ern side of the Davenport lawn. As it was yet 
early for breakfast at the hotel, and he had 
already walked far and fast, he naturally 
dropped upon a bench placed in a shady nook 
of the lane for Dunleith visitors when waiting 
for a car. 


‘‘The Top O’ The Morning” 


111 


Then the side door of the house opened and 
Grace came down the walk into the rose-gar- 
den, snapping her shears and talking to Will’s 
bird-dogs that scampered about her. Her 
dress was charmingly inconsistent. Her white 
pique skirt and tennis shoes defied the dewy 
grass, but her waist was some loose, fluffy 
feminine thing such as girls love to breakfast 
in, but so home-looking that Gilbert caught his 
breath sharply. There was nothing hasty or 
slovenly about her toilette, but just enough 
freedom and ease to facilitate the little duties 
of dusting and beflowering the home which 
every true woman loves to do for herself. 

“No, Hector, down! this is Juno’s morning 
to carry the basket. You won’t be so anxious 
after it is filled with thorny roses. Ah-h-h — I” 
and she bent over a pink beauty to drink in its 
fragrance. “Catharine Mermet, you are gene- 
rous this morning!” and she snipped off a 
dozen buds and laid them in Juno’s basket. 
“Hiding, are you ?” and she dived for one near 
the ground; but when she straightened up a 
strong, stiff branch of Paul Neron caught in 
her fluffy hair. She pulled and twisted in vain, 
and finally sat down on the ground and tried to 
untangle the glossy strands. “What a how-de 
do! all because Paul Neron is jealous that I 
kissed Catharine Mermet first this morning.” 


112 ‘*The Top O’ The Morning” 

But this was too enticing for Gilbert, so he 
emerged from his nook and said : 

‘'Can’t I help you?” 

“Ah, you !” and Grace’s cheeks dimmed the 
roses as she wondered how much of her non- 
sense he had heard and what he thought of 
dressing-sacks — she had heard Boston women 
were so prim. As to why he should be here 
at this early hour ? — ^but never mind, he looked 
too business-like to question. He bent above 
her dishevelled head and carefully cut away 
the offending branch, and the temptation to 
appropriate a tiny curl was as great as the 
opportunity, but his Puritan training saved the 
situation — and the curl. When released Grace 
arose and with sundry pats, bestowed with 
feminine accuracy, rearranged her hair, mean- 
while talking away at random to forestall Gil- 
bert’s evident determination to have it out. 

Clipping a handful of roses she arranged 
them in the basket, saying : 

“You see, I put all the Catherines at one end, 
all the Paul Nerons at the other, and the Duch- 
ess de Brabant in the center as chaperon. Let’s 
gather all the pink ones, and you’ll see how 
pretty they’ll look at Erma Johnson’s tea this 
afternoon.” 

“I won’t be there.” 


“The Top O’ The Morning” 113 

^Why not?” And her elusive raillery van- 
ished, leaving her blue eyes pathetically startled. 

“I am going away to-day,” he announced 
coldly. 

“Do you continue idling through the South 
for journalistic material?” she asked, after a 
slight pause, with a polite indifference that out- 
Heroded his nonchalant defection. 

“No, no more idling!” he answered with un- 
necessary vehemence. “I am going back to 
work, for the South has robbed me of my 
peace, of my heart. You know it, for you are 
the thief.” 

“Robbery? A fair exchange is no robbery,” 
she answered softly, all her womanliness 
aroused by his hopeless, shaken mood. 

“For God’s sake, trifle with me no more! 
Do you realize the hope you hold out?” he 
demanded. 

“Yes,” she answered solemnly — “but I think 
it’s real mean in you to make me admit it, in 
plain English !” she added roguishly, and pick- 
ing up her rose basket she fled toward the house, 
for Gilbert Grayson was evidently capable of 
kissing her then and there ! 




A 

- j 




WHOSE PICTURE? 


George Haldeman, with a sigh, ensconced 
himself in one of the windows of the Art Mu- 
seum overlooking Eden Park; a sigh of satis- 
fied patriotism at the American art just studied 
or a sigh of impatience at his long enforced 
wait between trains, it would be hard to decide. 

This, his first examination of native art 
efforts after long and loving study of European 
galleries, convinced him that his countrymen 
were developing a style which combined the 
accepted canons of the Old World with the 
dash and vigor of the New; the result was 
good. 

Although it was several months since he 
returned to New York in response to a cable- 
gram announcing his father’s sudden death, 
this was Haldeman’s first glimpse of the Art- 
mistress he had once thought to make his life 
companion. He now realized that he had been 
allowed to go to the Parisian studios after com- 


116 


Whose Picture? 


pleting college, as much because his constant 
presence at home had been irksome to his young 
step-mother as because of any unusual talent he 
had manifested. Contact with real artists had 
soon illustrated to the student that his artistic 
sensibilities lay in his eyes rather than his 
fingers, so after the novelty of life in the 
Quartier Latin had worn off, he wandered 
about Europe, aimlessly absorbing art and other 
things. 

He finally became his father’s business repre- 
sentative in Italy, with headquarters in Florence, 
and was getting really interested in the work 
when that cablegram changed the whole plan 
of his existence. The elder Haldeman’s will 
proved that he had perceived this business 
awakening, for a recent codicil designated his 
son George the active head of his extensive 
business, as well as the chief beneficiary. Since 
arriving in America George’s time had been 
fully occupied in placating his step-mother, 
who was left little beyond her dower-rights (the 
elder Haldeman had evidently perceived many 
things), and in mastering the details of the vast 
interests inherited. 

With this business he had also fallen heir to 
several invaluable but antiquated clerks, to 
whom it was at first incredible that a man 


Whose Picture? 


117 


who had dawdled around art-galleries ten years 
should develop ambition and capacity in 
finance. The recollection of some resultant 
encounters caused Mr. Haldeman to smile com- 
fortably in the cool quietude of the Art 
Museum, whose students were still on vacation 
and whose visitors were few that hot September 
morning. All friction was now over, he had 
won the right to be at the head of affairs in 
fact as well as name, and he felt energy that 
had long lain dormant urging him to new 
endeavors. 

How these Americans worked! he thought, 
relapsing to his European view-point. Most 
of them — ^his old college-mates at any rate — 
had wives and children, for whom to work and 
climb, while he had not even brother or sister 
to encourage his business nascency. In fact, 
at thirty-five George Haldeman found himself 
more abundantly blessed with every good in 
life than with intimate friends, especially femi- 
nine ones. Of course within a reasonable time 
he could re-enter his father’s social circle, but 
what he missed was the chit-chat of disinter- 
ested congenial friends. Like those charming 
Marshall girls, from Alabama, for instance, 
whom he had known in Florence, where they 
were studying miniature painting. Then he 


118 


Whose Picture? 


frowned to think of their letter of introduction 
to their sister, to be presented in case she visited 
New York. For here was Mr. Haldeman 
bound most unexpectedly for Alabama, where 
business would keep him several days in Bir- 
mingham, near which the Marshall’s country 
home was situated, and that letter of introduc- 
tion still lay in his steamer trunk. 

Well, when he started West he could not 
have foreseen that he would be called South 
while returning to New York, thus causing 
a long, tedious delay in Cincinnati; then, be- 
cause the Marshall girls were charming was no 
sign their widowed sister would be. Widows 
were often tiresome. 

George Haldeman stopped generalizing to 
look idly at a carriage which had just stopped 
at the foot of the hill that is crowned by the 
Art Museum. A small woman in a gray trav- 
eling-suit was helped out by a gentleman who 
motioned the driver to care for her bag and 
wrap. As they strolled toward the building 
the man bared his head in the grateful shade, 
showing a handsome face, which would have 
been strong also but for a weak mouth and 
puffy chin; this corresponded with his figure, 
which suggested an athlete too indolent to train 
down. He was tall and broad-shouldered, but 
entirely too stout for his age. 


Whose Picture? 


119 


The woman was slim but well-rounded, her 
walk slow, firm and springy. Her hat-brim 
and floating veil of gray tissue concealed her 
face from Mr. Haldeman, but the glint of 
chestnut hair coiled on her neck was tantaliz- 
ing : such sheen, such richness of color, remind- 
ing him of Titian’s Madonnas. 

The man was talking to her eagerly, ear- 
nestly, but with never an encouraging lift of 
her hat-brim or veil. As they passed under 
Haldeman’s window she stopped abruptly and 
expostulated with a laugh : 

‘‘Now, Walton, it isn’t often I can visit an 
art-gallery, while you have demonstrated that 
you can propose at any time and any place, 
even by mail, so don’t let’s waste any more 
time over it to-day.” 

The man caught his breath sharply and his 
mouth assumed a momentary strength most 
becoming. After a pause he agreed grimly : 

“Yes, I believe this proposal in the broad 
glare of a hot day in a public park about com- 
pletes a collection in all possible times and 
places. There was that first time on the moon- 
lit veranda with the breath of roses — 

“Only eight months after Fred’s death!” she 
reminded him indignantly. 


120 


Whose Picture? 


‘Well, at any rate, that was the first and 
this is the last,’’ he flared back. 

“O Walton, how I hope you mean that! 
You can be such a good friend, as Fred and I 
both found during his life; but since he and 
little Freddie died — ” 

George Haldeman, realizing with a start that 
he had listened entirely too long, rose and 
began to re-examine the pictures and statues at 
random. In another wing of the building, far 
from the temptation to see or hear more of that 
interesting couple, he subsided on a seat behind 
a cabinet of ancient brasses, and pulling out a 
time-table began to study attentively the sched- 
ule going south. That is, as attentively as he 
could with a low tratnant voice ringing in his 
ears and that provoking gray veil fluttering 
before his eyes. Where had he known a woman 
with that peculiar timbre of voice, that quaint 
drawl? Why didn’t she throw back her veil? 
No doubt her face would be as plain as her 
voice and hair were attractive ; but in such case 
why did that other fellow propose perpetually ? 
A complete collection of proposals in all pos- 
sible times and places ! Whew I And Halde- 
man had never asked but one girl to marry him 
and was rather relieved when that fascinating 
but — er — Frenchy creature refused him. 


Whose Picture? 


121 


Just as he arrived at this point on his time- 
table that couple walked into the alcove where 
he sat alone and obscured by the cabinet. Well, 
it wasn’t his fault, the fellow would hardly 
propose again so soon after that rebuff, and 
besides, she might raise her veil. 

Evidently impersonal topics now prevailed, 
but the woman was talking with a steadiness 
that showed she feared he would relapse into 
personalities at the first chance. 

Opening her pocket-book she drew out a 
card and said persuasively : 

“Now here is Mamie’s address. You run 
down and ask the driver how far it is and 
.whether we would have time for a visit before 
dinner. I promised Mamie never to pass Cin- 
cinnati without writing her, but you know I 
would have gone straight through to-day but 
for that wreck ahead. And when I telegraphed 
Mama I was all right, but would be delayed 
here all day, she telegraphed you to — 

“You needn’t remind me that I am indebted 
to your mother for this glimpse of you ; I know 
you would never have — ” 

“Now, Walton Russell, please don’t! Run 
down and see what the cabman thinks about 
the distance to that address,” she broke in with 
determined cheerfulness and patience. 


122 


Whose Picture? 


He laughed ruefully and started on her er- 
rand, while she sank on a settle with a sigh of 
relief. 

‘‘Southern, ’’ Mr. Haldeman decided, “from 
the way she drawls, and orders men about. 
Reminds me of the Marshall girls.’’ 

Thinking herself alone, the woman drew off 
her gloves, tied her shoe, and then bent to see 
if she had crushed the big bunch of violets at 
her belt. Where did that fellow manage to find 
violets so early in the season ? She threw back 
her veil to sniff the fragrant flowers, and Hal- 
deman’s patience was rewarded, the artistic 
dream of his youth embodied! Her chestnut 
hair shaded lighter above the arched black 
brows, long lashes curled up from purplish gray 
(or hazel?) eyes, the nose was strong and 
straight, the mouth tender, kissable. Her skin 
was rather pale, but so delicate and clear that 
it would easily mirror every emotion, while the 
curving lips were crimson ripe. Girlishness 
was past — oh, yes! there had been Fred and 
little Freddie; but they had not drained all her 
sweetness, though their passing had left a 
shadow of happiness withdrawn in her wistful 
eyes, had caused an indifference, sometimes 
amounting to callous mockery in her manner, 
as Walton Russell could testify. 


Whose Picture? 


123 


She moved restlessly under this close, though 
unseen scrutiny, and glanced casually at the pic- 
tures behind Mr. Haldeman. Instantly indif- 
ference fell from her face like a mask, and with 
her eyes riveted on a canvas she approached 
it as one mesmerized or looking at the phantom 
of a loved one long lost. With trembling lips 
and soul welling up in her lustrous eyes she 
gazed at the picture above, then pushed back 
her sleeve and, opening the medallion of a 
bracelet, compared the miniature with the acci- 
dental likeness above. Then softly kissing the 
miniature she closed it, unpinned her violets 
and laid them on the wainscoting as one decora- 
ting a grave. Was this the same woman who had 
mocked at a man's love so recently? Then 
he was the wrong man, for God ! how she could 
love — had loved, rather ; and Haldeman's glow 
chilled instantly at the remembrance that she 
was a widow. 

As footsteps approached she pulled her 
sleeve over the bracelet, lowered her veil, and 
walked slowly forward. Her escort said they 
might make the visit if they hurried; she fol- 
lowed so silently, reluctantly that he turned 
and inquired with a world of repressed tender- 
ness if she were not very tired. This roused 


124 


Whose Picture? 


her, and as they passed out she was talking as 
steadily, though more forcedly, than when they 
entered. 

George Haldeman instantly and unblush- 
ingly arose and searched the group of pictures 
for the cause of emotion, the Galatea-like 
awakening of that changeable little widow. 
There was the usual moonlight on the sea, 
but the moonlight proposal mentioned that 
morning had roused her indignation, not the 
adoration he had seen later in her eyes; next 
was a pastoral scene ; then a rose piece, but she 
would not have carried coals to Newcastle by 
laying violets at the shrine of roses. Those 
violets were so sweet, he certainly would like — 

He resolutely went back to his search among 
the pictures. Here was a portrait of a prince 
in ruff and plume — ^possibly his features re- 
minded her of Fred. Next were depicted 
wharf-waifs diving after coins tossed by pas- 
sengers on a steamer; then there was the pic- 
ture of roly-poly baby brave in baptismal robes. 
This might have reminded her of little Freddie. 
Evidently it was the picture of the prince or 
the baby, likeness to husband or child, which 
had moved her so deeply, but which ? 

A fellow — that patient persistent Walton of 
course — might hope to soften her sorrow for 


Whose Picture? 


125 


her baby, but if a chance resemblance to her 
dead husband could arouse such a flood of 
emotion, he had a hopeless outlook. The vio- 
lets were as near one picture as the other. He 
certainly would like just one or two in memory 
of a beautiful face suddenly aglow, a modern 
Galatea, but that would hardly do, and doubt- 
less that other fellow had given them to her 
in memory of some proposal a la violette. Evi- 
dently the chronic love-maker stood no chance 
even if her poignant sorrow were for the baby ; 
but probably she mourned her husband, though 
there had been a Madonna-like expression on 
her face. 

Mr. Haldeman was roused from this circle 
of fruitless speculation by the clang of a car 
at the foot of the hill ; he looked at his watch, 
cast one more covetous glance at the violets, 
and caught the next car back to town. He 
dined leisurely at the hotel, then sauntered 
toward the passenger station, thus exercising 
while killing time. While turning his face 
toward the South he thought again regretfully 
of the Marshall girls’ letter of introduction to 
their sister in Alabama, the unknown State to 
which he was now unexpectedly called. He 
passed on through the noisy, odorous, lunch- 
strewn station to his sleeper. At first he was 


126 


Whose Picture? 


the sole occupant, but scattered belongings 
indicated that he would not reign in solitary 
grandeur long. The opposite section was evi- 
dently taken, and George Haldeman rubbed his 
eyes as he read on the suit-case, ‘‘Mrs. Eunice 
Marshall Merri weather” — the very name on 
that unavailable letter of introduction ! 

There was a premonitory jerk, a rush of 
belated ones, and from the vestibule came a 
familiar voice, “Good-by, Walton.” 

Then that changeable little lady in gray, 
who could ridicule a living lover one moment 
and make oblation at Memory’s shrine the 
next, sat down opposite Mr. Haldeman, opened 
Mrs. Eunice Marshall Merri weather’s suit- 
case, put in her veil and took out a book. 

Well! what a great big name for such a 
fragile little lady! No wonder her voice had 
recalled the Marshall girls. They had often 
spoken of their beautiful elder sister, but he 
had paid little attention, knowing that South- 
erners usually think their loved ones blest with 
birth, brains, and beauty. 

What had they told him about her, anyway ? 
“Poor Eunice had lost both husband and baby 
several years ago. She still moped and 
wouldn’t come to Florence with them, but 
stayed out on the plantation with Mother; in 


Whose Picture? 


127 


fact, if Eunice didn’t mind she would become 
as stationary as Mother, who was actually 
indigenous to the soil. And Eunice’s habit of 
going down to the family cemetery every after- 
noon was positively idolatrous. Of course, 
Fred had been a dear fellow (this rather per- 
functorily) and little Freddie a darling, but 
Eunice was too young and pretty and appre- 
ciative of the world’s best to spend her life 
on an isolated cotton plantation with a grave- 
yard as recreation-ground.” 

Haldeman had thought all this rather tire- 
some and heartless at the time, but now he 
wished he had listened more attentively. 

Just as Mrs. Merriweather took off her hat, 
disclosing an aureole of loosened chestnut hair, 
Mr. Haldeman decided he had played the pas- 
sive part of observer — and listener, too, he 
blushed to think — long enough. 

“Mrs. Merriweather,” he began, so sud- 
denly that she dropped her hat-pin, “my name 
is George Haldeman, and I knew your sisters. 
Misses Lena and Louise Marshall, so well in 
Florence last year that I venture to hope they 
may have mentioned me in their letters.” 

“Yes, they have, Mr. Haldeman, and also 
your return to America ; but how did you know 
me? Not from any likeness to my big brunette 
sisters, I am sure.” 


128 


Whose Picture? 


“No, this was my good fairy,’’ and he tapped 
the name on her suit-case. “Rather an unusual 
form for a guardian angel to assume, but it is 
doubtless to outwit the steamer-trunk that 
holds captive my letter of introduction to you 
in case you visited New York. That I should 
be called to Alabama seemed unlikely to them 
or to me until yesterday, when returning to 
New York from the West.” 

Mrs. Merriweather had been to Mackinac 
Island with a party of friends, who had lin- 
gered in Detroit with relations, thus leaving 
her to return South alone. Their conversation 
passed from the bracing beauty of that historic 
island back to the Marshall girls and their 
miniature work in Florence, touched upon the 
famous architectural grandeur of the Pearl of 
the Arno, rejoiced at the success of Wagnerian 
opera in New York, glanced at the inviting 
field for historical research in the South; their 
interchange of ideas increasing in zest, and 
fresh topics of mutual interest crowding upon 
each other. 

“We will pass Chattanooga about six o’clock 
in the morning, and if you are awake you will 
see majestic Lookout Mountain, and even from 
the car-windows the monuments can be distin- 
guished which mark the site of the famous 


Whose Picture? 


129 


Battle Above the Clouds/' said Mrs. Merri- 
weather, who had taxed Mr. Haldeman with 
being more familiar with European history 
and landmarks than with American. 

‘^But you will not be up early enough to 
point out the battle-field and enlighten my 
ignorance," complained her would-be pupil. 

‘'Why not? My mother and I get up every 
morning at five o'clock in the summer," she 
answered, then catching his glance of horrified 
amazement she added, “but we take a siesta 
during the long, hot afternoons. Our drive 
over the fields where the hands are at work and 
on to the station after the mail is a treat if 
we go while the dew is still on the grass and 
the woods vocal with birds breakfasting; then 
our nap eliminates the hottest part of the day 
and refreshes us for a long session with papers, 
books, or letters after tea." 

George Haldeman listened, of course, yet 
mentally meandered. Nowhere had he met a 
woman who was at once so essentially femi- 
nine and domesticated, yet so conversant with 
literary, dramatic, musical and artistic move- 
ments in Europe and America. If this were 
the ca5e when she lived on a plantation and 
took her recreation in the family grave-yard, 
what joy it would be to show her the treasures 


130 


Whose Picture? 


of art and romance in Europe, or to breast 
together New York’s whirl of winter attrac- 
tions. 

Haldeman was brought back to the exigen- 
cies of the present by the grotesque flappings 
of the curtains in front, as a fat drummer 
scuffled into his downy couch. No doubt Mrs. 
Merriweather was tired and would like to 
retire, so he reluctantly bade her good-night 
and sought the smoking-room, which was 
deserted. There he gave free rein to fancy, 
picturing her return down the aisle in some 
fascinating negligee, but acquaintance imposed 
restrictions — that cadaverous military fellow 
might ogle her, but Haldeman would smoke 
another cigar and resist temptation. Mean- 
while, he tried to solve a serious problem — 
could a man of his years and cosmopolitan 
habits fall in love at first sight and with a 
woman he had seen mock at one man’s devotion 
and pay secret tribute to past love ? 

When he awoke with a start the next morn- 
ing, the train was pulling out of Chattanooga. 
A precautionary peep disclosed Mrs. Merri- 
weather sitting opposite, cool, calm, and most 
incredibly clean; for a nocturnal dash through 
twenty-seven tunnels had fastened upon Mr. 
Haldeman and his belongings a griminess he 


Whose Picture? 


131 


feared might be permanent. She had added 
some dainty white bands at her throat and 
wrists, the little tendrils of chestnut hair on 
her temples and neck were still crinkling with 
moisture, her purple eyes were like dewy vio- 
lets — altogether she was as immaculate and 
refreshing as a May morning. 

She was absorbed in the passing panorama 
of Lookout Mountain, and sent no inquiring 
glance toward her belated pupil in American 
history. He grieved at his ignominious over- 
sleeping; but one thing was certain — that 
radiant, immaculate creature should not see 
him in his present dishevelled and grimy con- 
dition if he never reached the dressing-room. 

So while Mrs. Merriweather gazed with 
open delight upon Lookout’s grand silhouette, 
Mr. Haldeman gazed secretly, but with equal 
admiration, upon her. But the situation threat- 
ened to be prolonged uncomfortably. For 
when a waiter from the dining-car came after 
her coffee-cup — like most Southerners she took 
a cup of black coffee immediately upon awaken- 
ing — she told him she would breakfast later. 

“Better come now. Miss, befo’ de rush,” 
suggested the waiter, and she good-naturedly 
followed his advice. George Haldeman tipped 


132 


Whose Picture? 


that waiter handsomely when he finally hurried 
into the breakfast-car after a record-breaking 
toilet. 

Mrs. Merri weather greeted him pleasantly, 
and after chaffing him about his laziness, let 
him take the other seat at her little table. She 
seemed to have thought of her sisters all night, 
for she had a dozen questions to ask about 
them and their life in Florence. 

As they neared Birmingham, where she made 
her last change of cars and his journey ended, 
Mr. Haldeman began to entertain misgivings 
as to Mrs. Merriweather. She couldn't be a 
good Southerner — she got up too early in the 
morning and she didn’t invite everybody she 
met to visit her home. 

The little train she was to take was puffing 
impatiently when they arrived, so he hurried 
across with her and watched her whisked away 
with a stinging sense of humiliation. It was 
the first time he had ever longed, almost hinted, 
for an invitation and then received it not. 

‘‘Well, if that fool Walton proposes in sea- 
son and out it is not her fault, for of all the 
friendly icicles — ” Then Haldeman shook 
himself, awoke from the thrall of the past 
twenty-four hours as from a dream, and set 


Whose Picture? 


133 


about the business that brought him to Bir- 
mingham with such vicious energy that he 
despatched in one day arrangements he had 
supposed would occupy three. 

He hurried back to New York, determined 
to work, to grind, to scheme, with never 
another thought of a woman who laughed at 
a man's love, cried over a picture (which pic- 
ture?), met a stranger cordially and parted 
from him just as cheerfully at her own door, 
so to speak, without asking him to enter. No, 
all that was simply a little contretemps that 
loomed large during the tedium of travel, he 
would never think of it in the metropolitan 
rush. But the first bunch of violets he saw tuck- 
ed in a woman’s belt made him savage with 
longing, and an auerole of chestnut hair in front 
of him at the theater occupied his attention to 
the exclusion of a famous tragedienne. Ah, 
to see her again, to really know her, to be loved 
by her ! 

Several mornings later George Haldeman 
found among the letters put aside by his secre- 
tary for his personal opening, a little envelope 
that had arrived by devious ways. 


134 


Whose Picture? 


''Mr. George Haldeman, 

"Hotel Hillman, 

"Birmingham, 

"Alabama/' 

was the original and feminine superscription, 
while masculine hands had added the various 
business addresses which finally brought it to 
his New York office. It was dated the day he 
Spent in Birmingham, and ran : 

''My Dear Mr. Haldeman: 

"My mother would like to meet one who has 
seen her absent daughters recently. Can’t you 
find time to run out to see us at The Ford 
before your return to New York? Our monot- 
onous mode of existence might furnish a pic- 
turesque contrast to life in New York, or to 
any European rural communities you may have 
studied. 

"Hoping we may see you soon, I am, 

"Very sincerely yours, 

"Eunice Marshall Merriweather.” 

Why had he hurried away from Birming- 
ham like one possessed of the devil of unrest? 
Haldeman got up unconsciously, as though to 


Whose Picture? 


135 


retrace those many miles, put on his hat and 
coat and went out and bought a bunch of 
violets, then came back and spent the rest of 
the morning concocting an answer that would 
sufficiently express his regret that his premature 
departure from Birmingham prevented his re- 
ceiving her invitation until too late to accept. 
His expressions of pleasure must not startle nor 
offend that winsome, uncertain little widow, 
but must entail an answer. 

He succeeded ; after that never a week passed 
but they exchanged long, chatty letters on con- 
genial but impersonal topics. This seemed her 
natural style, but he wrote with careful care- 
lessness ; he realized there was for him no half- 
way ground. He must either stick to discourses 
on Parsifal, the Art Loan, Mansfield, etc., or 
else follow in the footsteps of that poor Walton 
who proposed habitually, even by mail. Would 
that fellow stay in Cincinnati ? 

As spring breathed anew over the land, 
George Haldeman found he could not be con- 
tent even with violets in his buttonhole, a fresh 
letter from Mrs. Merriweather in his pocket 
and the answer seething in his heart only to 
be mutilated by fear of its reception. By a 
series of palpable hints he led up to the fact 
that he hoped for another invitation to The 


136 


Whose Picture? 


Ford in case he found it necessary to visit 
Birmingham again. He received the invitation 
and the business necessity immediately devel- 
oped. 

But this coveted visit gave Mr. Haldeman 
little satisfaction beyond furnishing a new 
frame for the picture of Eunice (already thus 
abbreviated) which so constantly filled his 
mind. The simple, wholesome, almost archaic 
existence led by Mrs. Marshall and Mrs. 
Merriweather on that isolated plantation was 
interesting of itself, as a type of social condi- 
tions new to this cosmopolitan; he felt as 
though he were assisting in a reproduction of 
life before the war, and doubted if many of 
the old negroes realized they were free, so abso- 
lutely yet easily did these two gentle women 
rule a large plantation. 

The new picture he carried away in his heart 
of Eunice in filmy lilac organdy with creamy 
lace at the neck and sleeves was alone worth the 
trip, still he had hoped for more. But if she 
suspected his interest had gone beyond the 
limits of friendship, she was oblivious, not to 
say obtuse. 

Her indifference, the remembrance of Wal- 
ton’s rebuke, the sight of those tombstones over 
on the hill — what a lugubrious custom! — that 


Whose Picture? 


137 


bracelet, so plainly visible through her lacey- 
sleeve, whose medallion she had kissed so ten- 
derly in the Art Museum — all these conspired 
to keep Mr. Haldeman silent on the subject 
tugging at his heart, though he had left New 
York expressly to learn his fate. It was tan- 
talizing to think that one look at the miniature 
in her bracelet might end all his doubts; the 
memory of her face a-quiver with love over it 
lured him on, yet silenced him with apprehen- 
sion. Oh, to earn, to command such love from 
such a woman ! 

His insight into the home life of this devoted 
mother and daughter, necessarily intimate and 
informal, yet preserving much of the ceremony 
and formality handed down from former gene- 
rations of Marshalls, was also discouraging. 
The close family affection binding these two 
and not even broken by the time and distance 
which separated the girls in far-away Florence, 
was a revelation to motherless, itinerant George 
Haldeman. To ask Eunice to loosen these ties 
of blood and long usage would be useless, 
almost impudent. 

So Mr. Haldeman returned to New York 
more deeply in love with Eunice Merriweather, 
but convinced that by telling her so he would 
only lose her friendship, never gain answering 


Whose Picture? 


love. If their correspondence lagged it was 
on his side; for since he was acquainted with 
The Ford and some of its quaint characters, she 
could add many a home touch or amusing pen- 
picture to the former literary tone of her let- 
ters; while the things he could not, dared not 
say choked “the feast of reason and flow of 
soul’^ which the mere thought of her had 
formerly stimulated. 

Lena and Louise Marshall returned from 
Florence late that fall and George Haldeman 
made their week in New York one round of 
delight. They considered the chance meeting 
of friend and sister rather interesting and were 
pleased to think he had run out to The Ford 
and become acquainted with their “indigenous 
mother,” but if they suspected any deeper trend 
George Haldeman’s lavish exertions for their 
pleasure was the cause. 

No doubt on their arrival at The Ford they 
commented and teased with family freedom, 
for soon afterwards Mrs. Merriweather’s letters 
lost their spontaneity, their tone of frank friend- 
ship ; either the girls had made it impossible for 
her longer to ignore the situation or his letters 
had betrayed his love unconsciously. 

One morning just before Christmas Mr. 
Haldeman breasted a blizzard to his office, only 
to be further chilled by finding a formal little 


Whose Picture? 


139 


note of thanks from Mrs. Merriweather for a 
book of engravings he had recently sent ; but at 
the bottom of his mail was another letter post- 
marked Marshall Station, and among other 
things Lena said : 

‘^The impossible has been accomplished; nil 
desperandum! never say die! etc. We have 
at last uprooted Mother from her native heath 
for twenty-four hours, without serious results, 
unless the Mount Pisgah Church expels her for 
attending a theater ! 

‘‘It came about in this way. Walton Russell 
is in Birmingham now and while ‘Ben Hur’ 
was being played there last week he invited us 
all to come up. He included Mother merely as 
a matter of form, but it roused our ambition. 
After open, prolonged persuasion failed to 
move Mother, Louise and I resorted to strat- 
egy. We privately told her it would not look 
right for sister to be our only chaperon, under 
the circumstances; that of course Eunice, who 
was a little rusty on recent points of etiquette, 
did not realize it and must not be told of it. 
As Eunice was enthusiastic about the jaunt. 
Mother could not bear to disappoint her or to 
subject her to criticism, so we all went and 
had an immense time.” 

Just how much Lena meant for him to read 
between these lines George Haldeman did not 


140 


Whose Picture? 


take time to decipher — he was too busy arrang- 
ing to leave his business for a few days and 
in catching the south-bound train. Once set- 
tled in the Pullman, however, he studied the 
careless, friendly note over and over. ‘‘Walton 
Russell has been in Birmingham” — how long? 
“Under the circumstances” — what circumstan- 
ces? “Eunice was enthusiastic over the jaunt” 
— the play or the host ? 

The afternoon of the next day he alighted 
at Marshall Station and looked blankly around 
the deserted fields, as though astonished his 
endless questionings or some mental telepathy 
had not brought her intuitively to meet him. 
Marshall Station was simply a stopping-place 
for the train when the Marshalls or their em- 
ployees wished to come or go, the sole inhabit- 
ant being a combination telegraph operator and 
postmaster. 

“Just leave your grip here,” suggested this 
accommodating combination, “old Mose will 
come over in a few minutes for the Marshalls' 
mail and he will carry it back in the buggy.” 

Thus relieved of his suit-case, Mr. Haldeman 
enjoyed immensely the three-mile walk after 
the cramp of two days’ travel. The silence, 
the autumnal atmosphere, the brown woods 
where sheltered places still glowed with gor- 
geous sweetgum and sumach, were novel, rest- 


Whose Picture? 


141 


ful, gratifying after the financial grind of cold, 
noisy New York. 

As he neared the Marshall home just before 
sunset, invigorated physically and mentally 
with exercise and determination, Lena and 
Louise Marshall came dashing across the little 
stream that encircled the park and gave The 
Ford its name. They checked their horse in 
midstream at sight of the tall New Yorker 
tramping so vigorously across the little rustic 
foot-bridge. 

‘‘Why, Mr. Haldeman! Where did you. 
come from? Didn’t you write or telegraph?” 
chorused the girls. 

“No, I just — er — came. Is Mrs. Merri- 

weather at home ?” 

“Yes, she’s picking violets for the cemete — ” 
began obtuse Louise. 

“Get in and we’ll drive you up,” cut in Lena. 

“Never mind, go on,” said Mr. Haldeman, 
and hurried on oblivious of any rudeness. 

“Hope we don’t feel bad,” called Louise. 

“Hope I’m not going to,” called back Mr. 
Haldeman, grimly. 

Past the family grave-yard, up through the 
wooded park he made his way to the low 
white fence that enclosed the flower-yard, the 
dead grass muffling his foot-falls. Mrs. Merri- 


142 


Whose Picture? 


weather, clad in a fluffy house-dress, or tea- 
gown perhaps, was kneeling on the white 
sanded walk picking violets. The chill wind 
had pinked her cheeks and loosened little ring- 
lets from the mass of chestnut hair which the 
setting sun gilded gloriously. Selecting a few 
extra large leaves she added them to the bunch 
of violets and rose from her knees, feeling 
vaguely about her shoulders for a loose thread 
to tie them. This search being unsuccessful, 
she caught a loosened lock of hair and with 
a little frown pulled out a few strands and 
wound them around her bouquet. Opening the 
little gate, she was starting down the path 
toward the cemetery when she saw George 
Haldeman. 

‘^Oh! when did you — ?” 

“May I have those violets ?” he asked, with- 
out preface, as though he had traveled all that 
distance for flowers only. 

“Why, are they so scarce in New York?'' 
she parried. 

“O Eunice, you know what I mean — you 
know I love you, have loved you from the very 
first ; that you are the violet-like woman I have 
found blooming in this sheltered nook, after 
roaming the busy world. Give them all to me, 
the flowers" — ^touching the violets ; “your 
beauty" — touching her Titian hair; “yourself" 


Whose Picture? 


143 


— gazing hungrily into her luminous eyes. 

She stood spell-bound, knowing that this 
was the crisis of the long battle she had been 
waging between the past and the future; that 
this man lightly turned away would never 
return. One fleeting glance toward the cold 
white monuments fading into the wintry mist, 
then she turned to Mr. Haldeman and held out 
the violets. Once again he beheld her sensi- 
tive face transfigured with love and knew him- 
self blessed among men. 

After tea they all gathered around the crack- 
ling, cheerful log fire. Mrs. Marshall sat in 
her own particular chair in the ingle-nook knit- 
ting, while the cat in her lap purred luxuriously. 
The girls were already planning visits to 
‘‘brother George” in New York, while Eunice 
lay back in a big chair, with the serenity and 
relief of capitulation. She had not changed 
her soft, fluffy tea-gown, but in her hair, neces- 
sarily rearranged, was a bunch of fragrant, 
slightly crushed violets; a few of the same, 
bound with a lustrous strand, adorned George 
Haldeman’s coat as he rested his elbow on the 
tall mantel and surveyed the fire-lit circle. 

The gleaming medallion of Eunice’s brace- 
let, where her rounded arm escaped from the 


144 


Whose Picture? 


laces of her puffy sleeve, caused his first qualm. 
Was it her husband's picture therein that she 
had kissed so tenderly in the Art Museum, that 
she still wore after his rapturous kisses in the 
gloaming garden? 

‘‘Why so serious, brother mine? Has the 
rose-leaf crumpled already — or rather the vio- 
let leaf?” rallied Louise. 

“Isn't it a serious thing for a roving, kinless 
bachelor to become so suddenly possessed of a 
sweet “comfy” mother, two charming sisters, 
and — ” But words failed him as his eyes 
rested on Eunice. 

“Especially when one of those sisters is be- 
coming a famous miniature-painter,” put in 
Lena, to fill in the pause and to remind them 
of Louise's recent honors in that line. 

“The best work Louise ever did was for 
Eunice, a work of love. Show it to Mr. Halde- 
man, dear,” said Mrs. Marshall. 

Eunice drew down her bracelet and opened 
the medallion which had aroused George Hal- 
deman’s curiosity, then his jealousy. He laid 
his fingers on her cool white arm and bent over 
the locket with tremulous anxiety ; but the 
angelic baby face that smiled back at him dis- 
pelled passed fears, presaged future hopes. 


. r 


» 







.i 





. . M . 

• ' *• 


* » 
• I 


* 



r- r. , ‘V 


i . , 




nuu 


JL 


w 

r 


1 


• -• 


1^’ ^ ’ 

3’ T. i”, ■';.# 

^ V '. ir^' 

»^'>- .i 

« 

« ' 

<• f • 

?J . ' 

• 

"Tt j » . 

t:«\ ft 

' ’ 

w* 

■ Ar ^ 

■ - ‘ '■ A 

yp / ' 

► f 

. *^V, 

« 


. . ^ 

• 9 ' 

'\h' '■ , 

r ' S V. . • , : 

w 


V 



« 




I 


/ 

•V 

k 

* 


f * 

• t •. 






?• 


^ ' 

i’ I 


• • 

’ . «• 


*t > 




I • 

• -4 


V 


‘fc- 




* 

• ft 


>;■>■<■’ * ■■ ■ 


* I • 

•» 


‘ * « 


\ • 


. / 
/ 


\ . 




*.• 


t 


• ^-4 

V 


S 


t ■ 

% • 

, " r 


t V • 


« ft 




i 




'm 



>■■ '•'i 
4 ^;. / 




# 








I 

-■ • 

1 



< 

I 



• r 





